In The End
by Tiana-P
Summary: Sometimes, going after the truth ends up with the truth coming after you.
1. Chapter One

**_A/N: Hello, once again, guys. So after the fantastic feedback on my one shot 'Identity' [you guys seriously rock!], I thought I would give it a try with a chaptered fic. I really do hope that you all enjoy this just as much. Please R&R. Feedback, good or bad, is thoroughly appreciated. Thank you, and read on!_**

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The loud constant beeping was a familiar sound, but never welcomed. She had been a slave to it for as long as she could remember, and now, as she flung her arm out without even bothering to open a eye, Kensi wished that morning hadn't came so quickly. Hitting the alarm with practised precision, the silence was broken by a low chuckle that she managed to drown out by burrowing back into her covers. Although she wasn't sure what the time had been when she had finally gotten to sleep the night before, she did know two things that factored in with it. One, it hadn't been early enough for her liking that morning, and two, it was the fault of the man currently in her room.

Her room, that was suddenly bathed in the brightness of the morning sun. Kensi let out a groan as the light penetrated through the sheets, even as she tried to crumple them up to form a more effective shield against it. However, that had failed and she was now reluctantly awake. It had amazed her how he could possibly start the day, and even get ready for it, in the dreary dimness of the curtained room, but she had soon come to learn that he could probably do it all in pitch black darkness all the same.

She, however, needed the sunlight to merely wake her up, and unfortunately, he knew that. But she still refused to look up when the space behind her on the bed dipped where he no doubt perched with a knee, or when she felt him carefully brush her hair back away from her face.

"Don't fall back asleep." Despite the warning tone to Callen's faux-chiding words, she couldn't help but to feel the pull back into sleep once again.

"Hmm..." She managed to murmured, only to hear another chuckle at her expense.

"I'm serious, Kens. I won't cover for you." He laughed before he let his lips travel lightly over her cheek and spoke quietly near to her ear. "I'll see you at work, babe."

This time, there was no reply from her but she knew that it wasn't anything more than he expected. She would feel guilty, but it had been the same way for over a year now. He'd get up at an unlawful time, do whatever he normally did and then make sure she was awake before leaving for work. It was a routine and it worked, so she saw no reason why to mess with it.

By the time the front door had shut, Kensi had managed to pull herself up into a sitting position in her bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. And with another half hour, she had dragged herself out of bed, showered, dried her hair and gotten dressed.

Feeling a bit more bright eyed than before, she made her way to the kitchen for a pick-me-up; a mug of a hot, bitter drink that was usually always made and waiting for her. She was not disappointed that morning, either, when the smell of coffee hit her as soon as she crossed the threshold into the kitchen. She might not be a morning person, but not having to do the littlest chores such as making her own coffee certainly perked up her mood.

...

Turning the slightly, in her opinion, speeding car up onto the driveway, she pressed on the brakes with just enough of a practice so that it stopped before the front collided with the wall. Kensi smiled as she switched off the engine, sparing a short glance over at her partner, who didn't seem as amused by her journey as she did.

"Who taught you to drive?" Deeks asked her incredulously as they exited the car. She couldn't help but to notice he was favouring his left arm, but chose to ignore it for as long as she could.

"My dad." She replied matter-of-factly.

"Of course. How could I have not thought of that? It fits, along with all the _other_ life necessities that he taught you, legal or otherwise." He rambled, words trailing off at the end into a mutter. Entering the house that served as the cover or their base, Kensi turned to raise an eyebrow at him.

"Why are you snarky today? I mean, you're always snarky, but you're just rolling it out today." She questioned, a smirk pulling at her lips when he scowled at her words.

"I'm injured, that's why." Deeks answered after a second's pause. "And slightly pissed. Maybe queasy too, after that car ride."

"You're not injured." Kensi laughed, poking gently nonetheless at the arm he was literally keeping close to his chest. "It's just a few scratches and bruises."

"It hurts like hell!" He hissed and took a step away from her as she rolled her eyes.

"God, do they not prepare you for anything in the LAPD?" She asked rhetorically, before carrying on and ticking each one off on her fingers. "Can't follow tracks, can't hot wire a car, can't tackle a suspect-"

"We tend to use tackling as a last resort at LAPD." Deeks cut her off with a small huff.

"Well, we use shooting someone as a last resort here at NCIS." Kensi countered as they approached their bullpen.

"It is also known that tackling can cause injuries to both parties, which might in fact stop the suspect from cooperating." He told her in a tone that would probably make anyone else take his words at face value. But she, however, knew better.

"That's bull. You just made that up." She accused whilst sitting down at her desk and staring him down, as he did the same.

"Maybe. Maybe not." Deeks replied with a shrug that was soon accompanied by a grimace. "You'll never know."

"I could always teach you how to tackle someone properly, if you'd like." Kensi offered politely, picking up the files that she had left haphazardly on her desk earlier that morning.

"Really?" He asked her, words tinged with shock.

"Yup."

"What's the catch?" Deeks questioned, eyeing her warily from his own desk as he did so.

"What? No catch!" Her words could have been perfectly innocent if he hadn't caught the gleam of mischievousness in her eyes as she looked up at him. "Call it a, uh... bonding exercise."

"I think I'll pass. Until I'm a little less injured, at least." He said dryly.

"Injured, Mr Deeks?" A voice came from behind him, making him jump sharply. He could hear the other agent present laugh quietly as she turned her eyes back to the papers in front of her.

"Yeah. It's nothing_ too_ bad, but I think they're some nasty cuts." Deeks informed their boss, adding a sigh to the end to sound more dramatic.

"Oh? Well, we must get that cleaned out before it gets infected. Come along now. I have some peroxide that'll do the trick." Hetty instructed him. She had already walked around his desk by the time he had found his words.

"Peroxide?" He stuttered, sitting up straighter and more alert. "Actually, you know what? I don't think it's that bad-"

"Oh, I don't know, Deeks." Kensi cut in, throwing him an overly sweet smile to emphasise her sarcasm."You _were_ moaning about it the entire way back. I think you ought to get it checked out. Better safe than sorry."

"Yes, yes. Ms. Blye is right." Hetty insisted, turning from one agent to the other before tapping lightly at Deeks' desk and heading back to her own office. "Now, come on. We don't have all day."

"Thank you, _Ms. Blye_." He grumbled as he passed her, shooting her an unappreciated look that she returned with another bright smile.

"Just looking out for my partner."

...

She had had the bullpen alone to herself, nice and quiet allowing her to concentrate on the files she read, for only 20 minutes before Deeks came slouching back. Kensi let her eyes flicker over to him briefly, watching as he took his seat. His injured right arm was looking more stiffer than ever before, but she decided to keep her mouth shut as he continued to grumble under his breath. The only sign that she could hear him was the mirthful smile that she kept hidden from him by doing her job.

It wasn't long before the rest of the team arrived; Sam and Callen from where they had been upstairs with Eric, getting information on another lead, and Nate from where ever he had been hiding. It was a habit that the operational psychologist had, managing to surprise even the best of them by appearing from nowhere. And worse, it was usually with a knowing look that said that he knew exactly that they didn't want to talk about. Yet somehow, he got it out of them anyway.

This time, however, Nate's skills weren't necessary.

"What happened to you?" Sam broke away from the conversation he had been having with his partner almost as soon as his eyes fell upon Deeks.

"Hetty and peroxide." He replied, spitting the words out like they were laced with venom, earning himself a mix of confused and amused looks.

"Ouch. What happened?" Nate asked as he stood at the threshold of the area that was known as 'theirs'.

Deeks looked over at him before turning back to a sheet of paper that laid on his desk, brushing off the question with a shrug. The other two agents picked up on the silence that followed, letting it press on for a moment before simultaneously turning towards the only other person there who would be able to give them answers.

"Suspect pushed him into a wall." Kensi informed them without even sparing them a glance. She didn't need to; she could see the smug smirks forming on their faces already.

"And...?" Callen pushed, making her look up at them both to see her prediction coming true. Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Nate intently trying to seem more interested in a casefile than their typical rousting, and right in front of her was her partner, still acting as best as he could to be nonchalant.

"_And_, nothing." She concluded, staring straight ahead at Deeks until he gave up his pretence and stared right back at her. Kensi raised an eyebrow at him as he did so, almost as if she was daring him to try and defend himself against what had happened. "That's it."

"Hey, I bruise like a peach, ok?" Deeks jumped in immediately before anyone else could comment and joke on his behalf. "It's not my fault. _And,_ in my defence, it was a textured, stoned wall, hence the scratches."

"Sure." Both Callen and Sam retorted together. The smirks had evolved into laughs as they went over to their respective desks.

"Did you get anything useful from him, at least?" Nate asked, directing his question to them even though he carried on reading the file.

"Barely. Got a name, but it's not really coming up with much." Kensi replied after a small pause, realising that Deeks wasn't going to answer. Sighing, she threw down the pen that she had been twirling in her hand and relaxed back against her chair. "I think I'm going to have to ask Eric to help me on an alias search for it."

"Alright. We'll go see the guy _our_ suspect gave up." Sam informed them. He had dropped a small white bag that she hadn't noticed before onto his desk as he left. "See if _he_ has anything useful."

"You coming?" Callen asked their operational psychologist as he passed him by.

"Really?" Nate spun to look after where the two of agents were leaving.

"You said you wanted to get into the field more." He shrugged.

"Yeah..." He trailed off before seeming to snap to reality. Shutting the file in his hands, Nate only shared a brief nervous look with the junior agent before following the others. "Ok."

"Have fun!" Kensi called out after him, twisting her chair as she watched him go, but not before throwing a grateful yet strained smile back at her.

Rolling her eyes at the thought of Nate out in the field, something she had experienced a few too many times already, she swivelled her seat back towards her desk. Resting her elbows on the armrests of her chair, she locked her fingers together in front of her and looked quizzically at her partner.

"A peach, huh?" She asked with a laugh, shaking her head. "Sure explains a lot."

"What?" Deeks answered, confused.

"Nothing." Kensi teased as she got up and headed over to Sam's desk area. Opening the bag that laid there, she smiled at what was inside, having already guessed correctly that it would be doughnuts. "Alright, I'm going to go see Eric."

"I'll come with. It's not like I can do anything else right now." Deeks told her with a groan, almost jumping up from his seat as he saw what it was that Kensi had found, and was now eating. "I can barely feel my arm under the pain."

"Unless you want to lose the feeling in your other arm, I wouldn't do that." She warned him, swallowing the last of her food and stopping him halfway on his journey to the sweet treats. So sweet that she herself had to follow it with water in hopes it would help, which it didn't.

"You just did." He retorted with a frown, doing as she said anyway and left the doughnuts alone to head upstairs.

"You see, there's this huge different between me and you when it comes to Sam." She told him in a tone that was as sickly sweet as the taste that was left over in her mouth.

"Which is...?" Deeks asked. By the sly smile she threw over her shoulder as they walked up the stairs, he knew her following words weren't going to be something he wanted to hear.

"He likes me."

...

"I can narrow the search parameters if you'd like. Might get you an accurate hit faster." Eric suggested when their current search landed them hundreds of possible aliases over the past hour. None of which, however, seemed to fit the exact same profile as the person they were looking for.

"Yeah, thanks, Eric." Kensi replied with a heavy sigh and turned around from facing the wall where the results were presented to the table next to her. The search itself was frustrating enough, but the headache that had came on almost suddenly made it very difficult for her to keep her focused. All in all, it was grating on her last nerve right then.

"No problem." The technical operator answered with a slight hesitancy that made her look up at him.

"What?"

"You ok, Kensi?" He asked her attentively. She was sure she would have snapped at him had he not looked so adorably innocent when he cocked his head to the side as he spoke.

"Fine." She simply said before turning her attention back to the papers spread over the table in front of her; a clear sign to leave the subject alone.

"Ok..." Eric trailed off. Glancing up through her lashes, she could just about see him throw a confused look at Deeks, who sat in the chair next to him and merely shrugged back. Kensi held back another sigh in response, instead appreciating the rare silence to try and sooth her head.

The quiet lasted longer than she thought was possible with the other two men around, but she was grateful for it. Other than the whirring of the electronics and the occasional beeps from finding alerts, nothing broke the silence. That was until approaching footsteps claimed all of their attentions slowly, watching the entrance subtly until someone appeared.

"Mr. Callen has requested for one of you to head down to the boathouse immediately." Hetty announced as she took only three steps into the room. It wasn't much, but there was something about the operations manager that always claimed everyone's attention.

"I'll go." Deeks said, practically bouncing from his chair to his feet. If his agitation at doing nothing and getting nowhere hadn't been obvious earlier, it sure was now.

"I thought you were injured?" Kensi remarked dryly.

"Huh, would you look at _that_? It's a miracle!" He exclaimed dramatically, stretching and bending his right arm while doing so.

"Just in time, too. The boathouse, Mr. Deeks." Hetty instructed after clearing her throat.

"On my way." Deeks lost all of his light-heartedness as he replied and left the room.

Kensi had leant forward on the table on her elbows as they spoke, letting one hand distractedly massage her temple in hopes to smooth out the headache. She could now feel eyes burn into her top of her head too, and try as she might, she just couldn't ignore it any longer. Instead, she looked up, dropping her hand, and raised an eyebrow in question rather than to speak.

"Everything alright, dearie?" Hetty asked her, and Kensi could see the Eric's eyes shoot from one of them to the other before turning back to his computer when she saw that she had caught him.

"Yep. Why wouldn't it be?" She answered nonchalantly, adding a relaxed smile that she hoped actually looked more calmer than strained to the petite woman.

"Hmm, carry on." Hetty nodded, giving in and turning around to leave. Her words might have said she believe her agent, but it was clear from her tone that she really didn't.

Now that it was just her and Eric in the room, Kensi could almost feel the awkwardness that had arisen since his initial questioning on her well-being. She couldn't help but to feel a bit guilty for that, but the pain pounding through her head was now radiating throughout her body and she lost her train of thought before she could turn it into words.

"This is taking it's sweet time." Eric whistled when the silence got too much for him. Leaning back in his chair, he twirled it around to face the agent who had obviously been thinking the same thing.

"Let me go see if there's anything else that might be able to narrow the parameters." Kensi informed him, adding a small genuine smile at his typical behaviour when he crossed his arms behind his head.

"You mean like other than just his name, age and face?" He retorted sarcastically, smirking.

"Yes." She agreed, gathering the papers together in a messy pile before pushing away from it and heading towards the exit. "Can you let me know if you get a hit?"

"Sure." Eric replied. If he hadn't been worried before, he was now. Sure, the situation was serious and annoyingly frustration, but in this job, it nearly always was. It was when the others stopped joking and lightening any moment they could that he knew there was something wrong.

...


	2. Chapter Two

**_A/N: Gosh, guys! Thank you all soooo much for the favs, alert adds and the reviews! I honestly didn't expect that many, but they have gotten me on a writing marathon, lol. I hope this chapter lives up to the first one. Sorry it's shorter, but I had to cut it off here to lead onto the next on. Once again, please R&R. Feedback, good or bad, is thoroughly appreciated. Thank you, and read on!_**

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The tech room was rarely ever quiet or lonely. However, since the last phone call close to half an hour ago, Eric was finding it very hard to keep at the task at hand. It wasn't the most riveting work he had ever done, and he had plenty of games that he could be excelling with just a few feet away from him. Thankfully, distraction came in the form of an ex-SEAL before he could even move.

"Hey, how did it go with Johnson?" He asked as Sam entered the room, turning his chair to follow him.

"G and Nate are still working on it." Sam replied, rounding the table to take a look at the both the board and the papers.

"And Deeks?"

"He's there, too." He answered distractedly before nodding to the search on the board. "You still got no hit for this guy?"

"Nada so far. Kensi said she was going to try to find something to narrow down the search, but that was like an hour ago so..." Eric told him, trailing off with a heavy suggestion and turning back to his computer.

"Where is she?" Sam asked with a small frown. He knew as well as the other man that if their junior agent said she would do something, she's get it done.

"At her desk, I think?" Eric said, turning it into a question when he realised that he wasn't entirely sure if she would be there or not.

"I didn't see her when I came in."

"She looked a bit ill earlier. Maybe she went to get some fresh air?" He suggested, twisting his chair back around towards the agent. The surprise that his words caused wasn't hard to see.

"Kensi? _Ill_? I don't think so." Sam laughed with a shake of the head.

"Hey, I call it as I see it." Eric said while holding his hands up. It was the universal sign for the other person to make their own conclusions on the given data, but he knew that the conclusion would be the same if the other man had seen her too.

"Nuh-uh. Kensi doesn't get ill." Sam dismissed.

"I know. But today... I dunno. She looked ill, man." He shrugged.

"Ok." Sam replied, slightly concerned before remembering why he was there in the first place. Digging out a piece of paper from his pocket he walked over to where Eric was to hand it over. "Listen, I need you to do me a favour. Run these names and see if anything comes up related to the case."

"Got it." Eric said, taking the paper and turning back to his computer to run another search. He could hear Sam leaving the room and there was no doubt in his mind where he would be heading.

...

He spotted her before he had even reached the stairs this time. As Eric had guessed, she sat at her desk, pouring over multiple sheets of paper to try and get something resembling a lead.

"How's it going?" Sam asked her casually, approaching her desk.

"It's not." Kensi sighed, looking up at him as he stopped in front of her. When she did, he could see what Eric had meant by the agent in front of him looking ill. He could almost see the exasperation as she watched him watch her. "What?" She asked, deadpan.

"You good?"

"Yeah." She replied instantly and getting up from her seat to cross over to her partner's desk.

Sam followed her movements with a silent stare, noting the other pile of papers on Deeks' desk that she riffled through. It didn't take long for her to find what she was looking for, but Sam's eyes never wavered and he saw every minuscule wince or grit of the teeth. The only time that she returned his stare was as she returned to her desk. Instead, she threw him a questioning look, and stood a couple of feet in front of him.

"What?" She asked self-consciously, brow furrowing. He simply raised an eyebrow at her, knowing that she knew what he had noticed. "It's just a headache, alright? It'll go away." She finally sighed, heading back to her seat.

"Last time I checked, people didn't go pale with 'just a headache'." Sam commented dryly.

"I'm _fine_." Kensi insisted, batting away the hand that came for her forehead. "Stop- _Stop it_!"

"Jeez, you're burning up." He exclaimed when he managed to get a feel, though it didn't last for long when she shoved him away.

"It'll pass when the Advil kicks in." She told him in a tone that told him to leave it alone before she changed the subject. "Has Johnson give anything up yet?"

"Just a few names." Sam answered after a slight pause; giving in and heading to his own desk. "Didn't want to specify which one we really needed. You know, to make our lives just that bit easier."

"Hey, at least you have names. I have a dead-end." Kensi retorted with a scoff. "I'm starting to think this guy's not involved at all."

"Well, until we get a hit, or Johnson tells us the right name, I guess we just got to keep on looking."

...

Kensi bit her bottom lip to stop herself from cursing at the laptop in front of her, or even worse, hitting it. After finally getting a small lead, she had taken to the technical side of it to try and cross search anything that would give them a plausible reason to go after any one of the handful of names that she, with the help of Eric, had managed to narrow it down to.

The search, however, was once again taking longer than she liked. And the brightness of the screen wasn't doing anything to help her headache either. She wasn't quite sure how, considering that she had taken up to the maximum amount of painkillers that she could, but the pain had increased steadily.

A beep from her laptop claimed her attention, only for her to find that it indicated that there was nothing to be found. Exhaling deeply to keep a bay her anger at the difficulty to get a straight answer for the case, she typed in the next name on the list and pressed enter to start the search.

With the rest of the team currently on other methods to do the same as her, find a _real_ lead, the bullpen was eerily quiet. Not even Hetty seemed to linger, nor the odd agent. Taking a look around to make sure that that hadn't changed in the last few minutes, Kensi pushed the laptop further away on her desk before folding her arms in the space to lay her head down upon. Although she had intended on simply taking the strain off her eyes, she was pretty sure it was longer than she thought when a voice in her ear brought her back to reality.

"Sleeping on the job can get you fired." He whispered, almost making her jump. Lifting her head up slowly, she threw Callen a dirty look as he took his seat next to her and turned back to her laptop.

"Not sleeping." She muttered, rubbing the back of her neck to ease the ache that she was sure she should have felt earlier, making her wonder if she _had_ indeed fallen asleep.

"Let me guess. Just resting your eyes?" He laughed knowingly. Kensi could feel his eyes burn into the side of her head no matter how hard she tried to ignore it. "Or is it your head? That headache must be a full-blown migraine by now. No matter how many Advils you take."

"I hate it when you two gossip about me." She sighed in annoyance, resetting the search when the previous one had gotten her no results once again.

"It's called caring. You should try it one day." Callen suggested heavily, though keeping his tone light. She would have taken offence if she didn't know he meant about caring about herself. Instead of replying, she did what she had been doing best all day and deflected.

"Did you get anything?" Kensi asked, leaning back in her seat and turning slightly to face him. The light-heartedness had vanished from his being at her words, and she watched him watch her, just as she had done with Sam. And like then, she waited, returning his stare until he backed down with a small mirthless smile.

"Got a top three." He shrugged before nodding towards the laptop. "Johnson refused to cooperate more than that. How about you?"

"A few names. Any match yours?" She informed him while picking up a piece paper with the information and handing to him. His eyes raked over the short list quickly before placing it back down onto the desk.

"Two."

"Almost there." She simply said, casting her eyes downwards momentarily to ease the strain it cause. When she looked back up, though, she wasn't entirely surprised to see Callen watching her once again.

"Go home, Kens." He told her softly. "There's nothing else left to do but go see these two if we can't narrow it down. We can handle it."

"I'm fine. It'll go away in a bit." Kensi brushed off like she had been doing and went to turn back to her work, only to be stopped by one of his legs blocking her own ones from turning the chair any further. The tactic earned him an unimpressed look.

"Any doctor would take one look at you and put you on bed rest. _That's_ how fine you look." Callen pointed out to her straightforwardly. "And I don't think you can take any more Advils without OD'ing."

"Didn't Eric say he had some information that might help?" She tried to change the subject once again, finally managing to get back to her work, or at least pretend to.

"As your boss, I could technically demand you to go home." He informed her. Kensi sighed and gave up the pretence of being interested in the nothing that her search was currently getting her. Instead, she looked over at him once again.

"But you won't." She smirked when he raised an eyebrow in surprise. There wasn't much that could surprise him, so when something did, it impressed, as well as amused, her.

"Cos I know you would only go against it." Callen reciprocated the smirk, though it was to a lesser extent than hers. Letting out a breath, he sat up straighter before getting up. "Fine. I'm going see Eric."

Kensi simple nodded, smiling subtly as he squeezed her shoulder when he passed behind her to head upstairs. Though she was glad that he had let it go, a part of her wished he had pushed a bit harder. That thought was shoved to the back of her mind as soon as it had came forth. She knew that with the right persuasion she could have given in, but she didn't want to. Being ill wasn't something that she was use to, and being ruled by it was a weakness in her books and that was not something that she fancied given in to nor showing. Though the latter she seemed to be doing a horrible job at as she rubbed her temples once again.

"I find lavender tea is the best to relieve a headache. Much better than any medicines." This time, Kensi did jump. Looking over her shoulder, she smiled tightly as Hetty approached her, _tsk_-ing and shaking her head as she stopped at the far end of the entranceway of the bullpen. "Mr. Callen is right. You should go home."

"There's still things to be done." Kensi replied, pursing her lips and pointing to her laptop, which had yet still to come up with anything useful.

"Eric can carry on the search." She countered coolly.

"We haven't even caught the perp yet."

"There's a whole team of agents available to help out." Hetty argued in the smooth manner that she always seemed to use to manage things around the place. Kensi opened her mouth to give her another excuse, but unfortunately for her that day, she couldn't think quick enough to lie. "Anything else, Ms. Blye?"

"I don't _need_ to go home." She ended up saying, knowing that she sounded more like a petulant child than a top agent.

"Yes, you do." The operations manager simply stated.

"Fine." Kensi sighed, giving up before she even started on trying to convince the woman otherwise. It was a fight lost even before it began, and she knew it. Once Hetty had her mind set on getting something done, it would get done, and not even she could stop it. Kensi wasn't sure there was _anyone_ who could win against the great Hetty Lange.

"Goody. Now, I don't want to see you again until you're all better. You understand me? I can't risk you getting the rest of the team ill, too." She instructed her strictly, bringing out a small smile on the junior agent's face.

"Thanks, Hetty." Her reply was only half sarcastic as she nodded to the words.

"Take care. Don't forget about the tea!" Hetty reminded her before walking away back to her own office.

Kensi waited for a while for the current search running on her laptop to finish before shutting it down and picking up her stuff to leave. Holding her bag in her hand, she made her way through the building until she got to the exit. As always, it was pretty sunny in the early LA afternoon and she was forced to dig out her shades to both see and help ease her eyes. Only once had she put them on did she look up properly and realise that there was someone already waiting by her car.

"Deeks, what are you doing?" She asked him carefully, meeting him where he leant casually against the driver's side of her car.

"I'm driving you home." He told her, smiling his typical bright smile at her that only made her want to punch him. Anyone who could be happy when she was in pain needed a punch, especially if it was her partner.

"No, you're not." Kensi stated with a dry laugh.

"Hetty's orders." Deeks informed her as he pulled out his own sunglasses and slipping them on before holding out a hand to her. "Keys."

"I can drive myself, thank you very much." She scoffed.

"Even with that headache?" He asked her sceptically.

"Probably still better than you and your fruity arm." Kensi shot back, causing his eyebrows to raise up.

"Fruity arm... I see what you did there. Funny. Real mature, too." He muttered, before getting back to the point of their conversation. "Now come on. More you argue, more time you have to stand here."

"More time I have to spend with you." She added with a deep sigh, finally handing over the keys and walking around the front of the car towards the passenger side. "Alright, let's go."

"Ouch." Deeks exclaimed dramatically as he got into the car too. "And I thought we were just starting to get along, too."

...


	3. Chapter Three

**_A/N: Whoa! I cannot believe how many of you left a comment on the last chapter! Wowzers, is all I can say. That, and thank you all soo much! It's really nice to hear that you're all enjoying this fic. I do apologize for the lack of romance, but it'll get there. It's a mix of a case and romance fic. More emphasis on the former, though. I want to try to make it like a normal episode, but with a few more personal touches and our guilty pleasures =P_**

**_Once again, I do hope you enjoy this chapter. Sorry for the wait! Please read and review. Thanks!_**

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"How are you getting back?" Kensi broke the silence that she had commanded from him. The journey to her place wasn't long, and it was only as they approached her block did she think of the question.

"Uh..." He faltered. Even from under her shades, she could clearly see the sheepish smile curving his lips slowly as he glanced over briefly. "Well-"

"You so much as put the tiniest scratch on it, and I'll make you repaint the entire car by hand, you got it?" She warned him, fixing him with the strictest stare that she could muster.

"Yes, ma'am." Deeks replied with his typical boyish grin that she could do nothing but roll her eyes to, though she knew that he wouldn't be able to see it.

Making him stop out on the curb by her apartment building, Kensi thanked him before repeating her threat about any damage coming to her car. When he silently accepted it, it occurred to her to worry about why he had listened to her without an argument, or at least a cheeky remark. First about the no talking rule that she had employed in the car ride, and now the threat.

Opening her mouth to question him, she shut it abruptly and got out of the car instead, deciding to let it go. If he wasn't going to rebuke, then she wasn't going to give him a reason to when she really wasn't feeling up to it. That was until she turned around and saw Deeks also stepping out of the car.

"What are you doing?" She asked him carefully.

"Getting out of the car."

"You had to drive me home. That's it." Kensi pointed out, a frown marring her features as she rounded the car to the sidewalk where he currently stood, eyeing the building appreciatively over his sunglasses.

"What, I don't get to come in?" Deeks questioned with a hint of hurt even as he started up towards the entrance of the place. Sighing, she shifted her bag higher on her shoulder before following him, catching up pretty easily when he couldn't get past the first set of doors. "We've been partners for months now, you know, and I don't even know where you live."

"You do now." She muttered, letting him in reluctantly and leading him up the stairs towards her apartment.

"So where's the harm in letting me see the place? It's not like you'll ever invite me around again." He shrugged. The goofy grin that seemed to never leave his face when teasing her appeared again and Kensi couldn't help but to feel a bit less stressed at the sight of it.

"I didn't invite you." She reminded him nonetheless as she dug out her keys and opened the door to her place.

"I'm going to let that slide." Deeks huffed. He entered the apartment after her, not waiting for her to make his way into the main living area.

Kensi shut the door behind them with another roll of the eyes. She made her way through the room that her partner was in, dropping her bag by the side of the couch where he stood and tossing her keys onto the corner table next to it. Heading straight into the kitchen, she could still hear him let out a low whistle as he took in the place.

"Nice. Clearly get paid better than LAPD." She didn't reply to his words, instead opening the fridge to pull out a bottle of water. The brief silence on his half unnerved her until he spoke up once again, this time his words taking on a suggestive tone. "Or perhaps it's cos you share it with someone else."

"Stop snooping." Kensi warned him, speaking loud enough so that she knew he would be able to hear her from the other room.

"A very certain _someone_ else. A guy. I'm going to take a guess here and say boyfriend." Deeks ignored her. "No pictures around. Guess that's the norm for an operative." He babbled on, and she could hear his footsteps as he made his way around the room, probably using his professional skills to work out the more personal parts of her life. "You know, I'm just going to keep on making assumptions until you say something."

"You know what they say about assuming." She muttered, re-entering the front room once again to lean lazily against the doorjamb that separated it from the kitchen.

"You're not denying it. I know you; you'd deny it if I was wrong." He stated, spinning around to face her from the middle of the room and pointing his finger at her.

"Yes, I would." Kensi admitted vaguely, taking a sip from the water bottle whilst bringing out a triumphant smile on his face that fell into an exaggerated pout a second later.

"I'm kind of offended. I'd tell you if I was in a relationship." He told her, crossing his arms as she raised an eyebrow and chuckled. "What, you don't think I would?"

"No, I believe you would." She told him, pausing to twist the cap back onto the bottle. She copied his stance before carrying on."Just the fact someone would be in a relationship with you in the first place..."

"I'll have you know, I'm a catch!" Deeks scoffed, not impressed with her ribbing.

"If you say so." Kensi played along, smirking and pushing herself off where she had been leaning. "Now, you drove me home, you've seen where I live and you've seen the inside. Leave."

"Not even a thank you? Or some water?" He asked with faux offence. Kensi smiled at him, more cold than anything else, as she advanced towards him slowly.

"Leave, or I'll skip every resort and go to the last one to make you leave. In an ambulance." She informed him innocently. It took a moment for the words to click in his head, but once it did, he started to back towards the front door. With the mood that she seemed to be in, along with the fact that she still had her gun on her, Deeks wasn't up for taking the risk.

"Right, so I'm going to go then." He said as he neared the door slowly. The boyish smile was back on his face as he unlocked the door and opened it. "Feel better soon."

Kensi merely nodded at his words before he left, letting the door slam shut behind him, much to her annoyance. Gritting her teeth as the pounding in her head came forth once again, she went over to the said door to lock it. Bed was the first and only place on the list of things she wanted to head to.

Making her way towards her bedroom, she stopped for a small detour to pick up the spare shirt that was laying on the arm of the sofa. She wasn't the neatest person in the world, but it was usually the littlest things that seemed to peeve her off. It was only once she entered her room that it occurred to her that it was probably the clothing in her hand that Deeks had spotted and clocked onto the fact there was a male presence in her apartment. Silently impressed by his observation and deduction, she pushed it to the back of her mind as she drew the curtains to bathe her bedroom in darkness. Changing as quickly and simply as she could, she slipped into the bed that she could not separate herself from that morning and fell asleep before she knew it.

...

The sun was still bright when Kensi woke up again. It outlined the drawn drapes enough for her to see the rest of her room, which was unsurprisingly the same as it had been before.

Turning lazily onto her side, she reached out for her cell phone from where she normally kept it on her bedside table. A frown pulled at her lips when her hand simply hit an empty space, forcing her to push herself onto an elbow to see where the object she searched for had gone. The frown transformed into a confused pout when she realised that her phone was nowhere to be seen.

It took her a good 5 minutes to finally locate it, after getting up, drawing back her curtains and trifling through the clothes that she had left haphazardly around her room. Of course, her phone had been in the most obvious place; her jacket pocket.

Three things occurred to Kensi as she unlocked her phone. One, that she had only slept for a couple of hours; two, that going from the text that Callen had sent her, they had caught the perpetrator; and three, she no longer felt like hell. The latter only occurred to her when she replied to the text message, where he had asked how she was feeling.

She wasn't sure whether the siesta had been the trick that had miraculously cured her. Either way, she didn't dwell on it too long, instead deciding to make use of the time on her hands to clear up the mess she had created and treat herself to a long shower.

An hour later, Kensi grabbed everything that she could possibly need, yet fit into her bag. There was a new burst of energy coursing through her body ever since she had gotten up, and it had yet to fade. She had contemplated going for a run to burn it off, but after just showering, it wasn't tempting to get all sweaty in the hot afternoon sun. Considering that she didn't even have a car at that moment, she couldn't even go back to headquarters just to see what was happening.

Instead, she had decided to go for a walk. There was a park near to where she lived that she had only visited on a few occasions, never really having the time nor the want to go. And she was sure that there was a small parade of shops on the other side of that park. If there was something that her place needed, it was some _real_ food. Though grocery shopping was never on the her list of top ten things to do with a day off, she knew it was a necessity, if not just for the sense of normality in her otherwise abnormal life.

...

If there was something that Deeks had learnt in the months that he had been acting as the liaison officer at NCIS, it was that the longer that the case was, the paperwork seemed to correlate exponentially with it. What was worse was the fact that Hetty expected them to get it done as soon as possible, which usually meant getting started on it on the same day if he didn't want to end up leaving half of it blank.

He was actually focusing on the work that needed to be done for once when Callen entered the previously empty bullpen. Instantly, Deeks' attention wavered. Subtly, or at least in a way that he considered subtle, he took a quick look around the surrounding area before turning back to where their team leader sat at his desk directly opposite him, wincing at the amount of paperwork that Hetty had thrown on _his_ desk.

"_Psst..._" Deeks hissed, leaning forwards. Callen looked up at him from the papers, raising an eyebrow at his low voice. "Where's Sam?"

"Making sure the perp is going where he needs to. Why are you whispering?" He asked in amusement as he relaxed back against his seat and crossed his arms to look at him.

Deeks shifted his eyes around once again, just to make sure that his words were true, before letting go of some of the stiffness in his body. Finally believing him, he placed his elbows on the table in front of him and carried on with his intended questioning, going back to his normal tone of voice.

"Can I ask you something?" Instead of replying, Callen simply nodded. "It's about Sam."

"Yeah, I kind of figured that out." He retorted with a smirk.

"Do you think he likes me, yet?" Deeks asked, and when the agent stayed quiet, he carried on. "It's just that Kensi said he didn't, and I was thinking that she likes messing with me so maybe he _does_ like me and, well... Yeah." He finished lamely after faltering. The look on Callen's face wasn't helping either. "Forget it."

"I don't know what to tell you, Deeks." He said. It was clear that he was trying to keep the smile from his face, but failing miserably. "But I don't think you're his type. And even if you were, he's married."

"Funny. You know that's not what I-" Breaking off, his exasperated words turned into one of surprise. "Wait, Sam's married?"

"Yeah." Callen confirmed as he got back to the paperwork that he needed to fill in.

"Why does no-one tell me these things?" Deeks huffed. Thinking back to earlier that afternoon at his partner's place, he came to the realisation that he really didn't know those on his team as well as he thought he did.

"Because it's got nothing to do with you?" The reply he got was distracted and didn't do anything to comfort him.

"Thanks, Callen."

"It's not important, that's why." Callen shrugged in reply to his sarcastic response. Deeks merely nodded in reluctant acceptance, turning back to his work when he carried on. "And about Sam liking you or not... Just don't worry about that. If he _really_ didn't, you'd know by now."

"Ok..." He trailed off. There was something about the tone that the other man had used that told Deeks that he should be grateful for the fact that he was still alive rather than wondering if the ex-SEAL even liked him.

They fell back into silence as the two of them got back to their paperwork. It wasn't something that was normal for that area of the building. If they weren't working on a case, they were either arguing or joking, or even messing around with the odd game of cards or paper basketball. Deeks couldn't help but for his mind to start wandering a good 10 minutes later. Sitting in one place, to _write_ nonetheless, wasn't an ability that he had perfected as of yet. He even contemplated leaving early, making up some excuse that was borderline to what Kensi had been experiencing earlier.

That was until the common chirping of a ringing cell phone broke the quietness. Practically jumping, it took more than a few seconds to realise that it wasn't his phone that was ringing. Deeks looked up at where the owner of the cell glanced confusedly at the caller ID, obviously unknown, before answering it.

"Callen. Yeah, that's right, why?" There was a elongated pause in which Deeks gave up pretending he wasn't eavesdropping, and sat back to see Callen do the opposite. "_What?_ Why?" The mix of perplexity and genuine worry piqued his curiosity more. "You've _got_ to be kidding me. Yeah, we'll be there in 15."

"What-?" Deeks began as soon as he had hung up and simultaneously stood.

"C'mon, you've got some liaising to do." Callen threw at him roughly, walking past his desk without even bothering to wait for him.

"Don't tell me we have another case already?" He moaned, following him anyway. Filling out paperwork wasn't something that he wanted to be doing, but neither was _another_ case, especially if it had the potential of lasting a few days again.

His question, however, was left hanging as he caught up with Callen when he paused by the archway that led them to the corridor to outside, stopped by a certain someone's voice.

"Mr. Callen." Hetty said, standing by the entrance of her office, hands clasped behind her back. They were simple words, but Deeks could hear the warning in them. It was obvious by her strict look that she knew what was going on, not that that was much of a surprise to him. "Keep your cool. I do not fancy cleaning up after you."

"I'm always cool." Callen retorted with a mirthless smirk before carrying on out of the building.

"Ok, does _someone_ want to tell me what's going on?" Deeks finally asked, straight-out looking between the petite lady and the retreating back of the leaving agent. The former simply jerked her head towards where the latter was almost out of sight, and Deeks sighed irritatedly, jogging lightly to catch up. "Well?"

"Kensi's been arrested." Callen answered. The nonchalant admittance made Deeks pause unconsciously as they approached the car, starting a moment later when the beeping of the car alerted him of it being unlocked.

"For?" He asked incredulously, walking up to and opening the door to the passenger's side as Callen did the same on the other side.

"Murder."

...


	4. Chapter Four

**_A/N: Sorry for the delayed update, and for this chapter being so short. I just had to end it here to get it up today. It was a case of either short and now, or long and another week. I hope the contents make up for the length, though. _**

**_Once again, thank you all so much for the reviews, favs and alert adds. I did try to reply to them all, but if I missed you, I apologize vehemently. And thank you to all those who reviewed anonymously. I hope you all enjoy this chapter. _**

* * *

Callen pulled up as close as possible as he could to the crime scene. It was a rather large park, and he had never really paid it a second glance whenever he passed it to and from Kensi's place, but right then, buzzing with LAPD and forensics, and the public, it certainly stood out.

There was a wide perimeter around the area where most of the people seemed to have gathered, giving him the sense to reason that he was in the right place. Slipping under the yellow tape with a quick flash of the badge, he took a couple of steps and stopped to take in the scene. From what he could tell, it was like any other crime scene that they had been to.

"So, where is she?" Deeks asked him, having done the same as him and scanned across he crowds around them for their fellow agent.

"Let's go find out." Callen said before nodding towards where a single LAPD officer stood, going through some papers. The hint that he threw him was fairly obvious before he added the words. "Start liaising."

Deeks cringed visibly at the thought of having to speak, and try to work something out, with the LAPD. However, that didn't keep him from walking up to the officer. Callen followed a couple of steps behind, giving him enough space to try to work something out without making much of a fuss.

"What do you want, Deeks?" He heard the LAPD cop growl at the other man.

"I hear you have my partner under arrest." Deeks replied, ignoring the clear stains irritation with the words.

"And?"

"Fancy giving her back?" He asked, turning on his typical boyish charm act, though Callen doubted it would work on a fellow law enforcement officer.

"Nope." The officer said, eyes jumping from one of them to the other. There was a steely look in his eyes that only emphasized the disgust in his words. "She killed a cop."

"_What_?" Deeks exclaimed with the same shock as Callen had had when the detective had called him. Turning to look at him, he carried on in a dry tone. "You didn't mention _that_ little bit."

"Forgot. Besides, she didn't do it." Callen shrugged nonchalantly.

"NCIS?" The uniformed officer directed the question towards the agent.

"Yup." He nodded. "Where is she?"

There was small pause where Callen could feel being eyed in suspicion. He knew what it was like to lose someone in their team, and what it would mean for them to let him take away one of their suspects, but he also knew that there was a mistake somewhere along the line.

The officer's eyes never left either of them as he spoke to, it seemed, his boss over his radio. The reply was masked by crackling and the noise of the surrounding park, making it inaudible, but if the tight jaw and frown was anything to go by, they were well on their way to getting what they wanted.

"Over there." He finally told them. They followed his eye line to a distance behind a few vehicles and trees to where Kensi was currently waiting. "She's still under arrest by LAPD, so don't try anything smart. We won't hesitate in shooting you. _Either_ of you."

His eyes lingered longer on Deeks than the NCIS agent, making the threat clear that it wasn't a joke. Dismissed with a turn of the back, Callen stifled a laugh at his words until they were more and halfway towards their destination.

"They really don't like you, do they?" He said with a hint of amusement.

"They're just jealous." Deeks brushed off, walking ahead when Callen responded with a sarcastic chuckle.

They had clearly been spotted by the time they reached where Kensi stood, by both her and the officers surrounding her. Leaning against the car with her hands behind her back, the look of relief was easy to read when she finally saw them, though it was quickly marred by annoyance that had no doubt to do with the situation at that moment.

"Oh, thank God. Can I go now?" She exclaimed with a sigh once they got close enough after being asked for ID.

"Never thought you'd ever be happy to see me, right?" Deeks teased, flashing her a grin that usually had her teasing him back. Instead, this time, it just pushed her further to the edge.

"Really? Right now?" Kensi said slowly, eyes narrowing dangerously that made him regret his words almost immediately before shoving him hard in the shoulder. "You want to start with me, right _now?"_

"Why aren't you cuffed?" He asked while rubbing his shoulder and taking a step back, eyes altering from his partner and their team leader who stood next to him. Callen didn't reply but smirked in a 'you should know better than _that'_ way, confusing him more. Looking back at Kensi, he watched as she produced the object in question from behind her back. "You got _out_ of them?"

"Without breaking a bone." She confirmed grimly before hiding her hands behind her back and leaning against the police car once again, proving that no-one else knew about her little trick yet. Turning her attention to Callen, she repeated her original question. "Am I free to go now, then?"

"Not yet." He told her before turning the questioning on her, making sure to keep his voice low to prevent from being overheard. "What happened? They're saying you killed a cop."

"It wasn't me." Kensi said at the same volume. Her words were worn with tiredness, clearly having stated the same thing many times before they had arrived. Their attempts to keep the conversation between the three of them hadn't worked, as neither got the chance to respond when a nearby LAPD officer jumped in.

"Who was it then?" He asked, or rather demanded. The three of them simultaneously turned towards him as he walked up to them. The badge on his chest identified him as Officer Jones, and Deeks could only shrug when Callen gave him a quick glance to see if he knew who he was.

"The person _I_ was trying to shoot at." Kensi replied. Though her words were steady and calm, anyone who knew her well enough could tell there was a whole bubble of angry emotions underneath her fixed mask that was close to bursting.

"There was no-one else-" Jones began to scoff, only for her to cut him off.

"You have witnesses saying there was!" She informed him with irritation and unknowingly dropping her pretence of still being cuffed and taking a step forwards to let her arms fall to her sides.

"Kensi." Callen cut in warningly, knowing that doing anything that might piss off the LAPD in the slightest could make things much worse for them, if there was such a thing.

The glare that had been aimed for the officer switched to him, to which he merely raised an eyebrow. It was a concerned questioning look that he knew she got. Out of everyone on his team, including himself, Kensi was the one who could always keep her cool even when it got tougher than tough. Being an undercover agent meant having to keep emotions in check all the time, something that she was a natural at. So when she came to the brink of losing it, it worried him.

"I didn't even shoot a single round. I swear, Callen." She insisted, relaxing slightly and turning towards him as she did.

"Well, we'll have to wait until forensics to prove that." Officer Jones informed them disdainfully.

His words caused her to tense once again, and Callen could just about see her hands clench into fists. Her restraint to keep herself from doing something entirely unprofessional was admirable, because he was sure, had he been in her shoes, he would have gotten close to shooting them himself long ago.

"You have my gun." Kensi stated slowly and tightly to the officer. "Take a look at it yourself."

"Why don't we get out of here?" Deeks spoke up when no-one else said anything. The tension was thick enough to suffocate any one of them and he could almost _feel_ the frustration radiating off of his partner in front of him; a mix of which he doubted would end with a positive outcome.

"Yeah, let's." Callen agreed and then turned back to Jones, who was still standing guard but silently. "You got anything solid to hold her on?"

"I'd take that as a no." Deeks commented wryly on the lack of response.

"She's coming with us then. We'll get you proof if you can't."

"If this jeopardizes the case-" Officer Jones began with a scowl, this time getting interrupted by the senior agent.

"You can hold me responsible." Callen finished indifferently. He touched Kensi's arm lightly to get her attention when the conversation around her didn't do anything to change her demeanour. "Let's go."

"She's still a person of interest in the case." Jones informed them before they walked away, though none of them offered any acknowledgement that they had heard.

Except for Kensi, who Callen saw falter in her step, pausing slightly before he urged her on with a hand on her back. He knew that she would rather have this sorted out right there and then; he would too, but that wasn't going to happen any time soon, and staying there would only elongate the process when they could do more and help from their HQ.

Removing his hand when they made it out of the most of the crowd, it was only when they got nearer to the car that the noise of the hectic park began to drift away. Each one of them had been lost in their thoughts as they made their way through, but now, Deeks took the opportunity to try and lighten the situation in a way that only he knew how.

"That's a lot of mess for someone who was ill." He joked after letting out a low whistle, earning himself a smirk from the other man. Kensi, however, didn't show anything but a small frown.

"I felt better." She shrugged. Even as she spoke, she reached up a hand to massage her temple as the mention of the illness brought forth the headache she had been fighting off for the past half hour now.

"You sure?" Deeks asked, dropping his light-heartedness for seriousness when he saw her actions.

"Yeah..." Kensi muttered distractedly, causing the other two to glance at her worriedly as they approached the car.

"What is it?" Callen asked her, not bothering to beat around the bush to find out if there even was an 'it'.

"The person who shot the cop..." She began slowly before pausing to swallow and ran a hand through her hair. It was clear that whatever she was thinking about wasn't something good. And if the hesitation was anything to go by, she hadn't shared it with anyone else as of yet either.

"It was a case of being in the wrong place in the wrong time, Kensi." Deeks reasoned, to which she shook her head to.

"No, that's the thing. It was that _cop_ that was in the wrong place at the wrong time." She informed them, making them stop in their actions to get into the car and turn their attentions back to her.

"What are you saying?" Callen asked carefully, looking at her from over the top of the car. Kensi met his gaze with determination, but there was a hint of fear in them that she couldn't hide quickly enough from him.

"G, it was _me_ they were aiming for." She stated plainly. "Not the cop. Me."

...


	5. Chapter Five

**_A/N: Wow! I dunno what to say except thank you all the reviews, adds, favs and alerts! I cannot tell you how much each one has made me get a move on with this chapter. I have tried to reply to all the reviews, but if i did miss you, I apologize sincerely! And to all the anonymous reviews-thanks a million!_**

**_Righto, onto the chappie. This one is definately longer than the last one. And it had the entire team, once again! I hope you all enjoy it. Please R&R and let me know =D_**

* * *

"So you never took a single shot?" Sam asked her.

"No! God, why is that so hard to believe?" Kensi snapped, throwing him a challenging look that the ex-SEAL smirked to.

"Because I would think that the LAPD would _actually_ have something to hold you on." He retorted. The comment made her smile reluctantly, relaxing against the table once again.

The entire team, Hetty and Nate included, had gathered in the ops room upstairs as they got started immediately on proving Kensi innocent. She had gone through the details of the afternoon after Deeks had dropped her off about 5 times now, each time having to repeat different parts when someone or another commented on it. The only person in the room who seemed to take her version of things at face value was Eric. Though she was pretty sure that was simply because he was their technology operator and was more interested in gathering the evidence physically.

"So why do they think it was you?" Nate questioned, not having gotten this far in the story as of yet.

"I was the only one nearby with a gun out. Dead cop plus me, with a gun. It was easy logic, I guess." She shrugged tiredly, leaning forwards onto the table to rub absent-mindedly at her forehead. The pain had eased up considerably since that morning, even without the use of any painkillers.

"And you never saw the shooter?" Sam asked.

"No. Honestly, I don't think he was in the park. The shots, they were..." Kensi thought back to the event.

It had only been 10 minutes since she had left her place when the first one rang out. It had missed everyone but the second one had hit the officer before either one of them had the chance to grab their weapon. She had only been a few feet behind him on the path, and had quickly taken cover behind a tree when another shot was fired. From the sound of the impact, it had hit the very tree she was using to keep safe. The fourth one whizzed past her when she tried to get a look, unsuccessfully.

Only when everything felt too quiet to be fine did she peek out again, inching out slowly and carefully. Her eyes had raked every place possible for the shooter, but couldn't find the correct place. And before she could do anything to call it in to _her_ team, another cop had found her with her weapon out, standing not too far from the dead officer and putting her in a very incriminating position.

"They were...?" Callen's voice broke her out of her thoughts. Each time she went back there, she tried to think if she had missed something, but always came up blank.

"They were far apart. Like, they were reloading or taking aim, or... _something_." She concluded with a heavy sigh, turning her head to look over at the screen where Eric was pulling up as many pictures as he could from the current scene. "Are any of these going to help?"

"They're the only ones that LAPD are willing to share. Legally." Eric added on the end with a sly smile that was soon wiped off when Hetty gave him a reproachful look. "I can't get into security cameras around the area, though. They've effectively blocked us from that."

"Deeks?" Sam asked, turning to the other man, who nodded and pulled out his phone.

"I can try to get someone to be _nice_ enough to give us something." He informed them.

"We need something about the bullets that they found, too. Both in the body and the surrounding area." Callen said whilst looking at their liaising officer, knowing that he would get the hint.

"Yeah... I don't think there's enough dirty info on the whole precinct to get us that." Deeks replied with a sheepish smile as he let out his secret of how he made his own people cooperate with him. He gave Kensi an apologetic look as he passed her that she brushed aside with a smile that was trying to be amused, but instead looked tight.

"I don't doubt that Mr. Deeks is correct there." Hetty spoke up, making them all look over at her where she stood at the end of the central table that they were all around, just a bit further up at the other end.

"There's a first" Sam muttered, brining small smiles to the others' faces. "What do we do now?"

"Well, they're going to figure out sooner or later that Kensi wasn't the shooter. How about we get one step ahead?" Callen suggested, sparking everyone's curiosity with his cryptic words that only his partner got.

"Find the real shooter?" He replied, to which Callen nodded. "You know what, if he was using a sniper or a riffle, they might be casings left behind."

"_Very_ good idea, Mr. Callen." Hetty appraised him, almost in surprise.

"Hold on." Kensi broke in before they got too carried away with the new direction. "We're just going to leave it to the LAPD to prove my innocence?"

"You _are_ innocent, aren't you?" The operational manager asked her sceptically.

"Of course!"

"Then you have nothing to worry about, dearie. They'll come to the right conclusion in the end." She informed her with a sense of nonchalance that made Kensi wonder if it was only her who was worried about being accused of murder.

"If Deeks gets some of the footage from the park and we prove your innocence, they'll see the same thing too." Sam reminded her, picking up on her uncertainty. "We're not getting anything that they aren't. Except that they don't know who this shooter was aiming for, yet."

"Alright." She gave in, knowing that it made sense to focus on the part that no-one else was currently on. Taking herself out of the centre of the case, it did seem like something that they would normally do, and she was grateful that the others hadn't forgotten that.

"Pull up the map again, please, Eric." Callen instructed him. He did as asked, clearing space on the screen for the birdseye view of the park and the surrounding areas. "Kens?"

"Ok. So I was about here." Walking over to it, she enlarged the map and circled the areas that she spoke about. "And the dead cop's about here, I'd guess."

"The other shots?"

"I didn't see the first one, but it was close. The others were here and... here." Drawing the additional marks on the screen, Kensi took a small step back to look at it whole before carrying on. "And they were coming from this direction. I'd say around this area."

Nobody said anything as she stepped back a bit more to glance at the rough diagram that she had drawn on the map. They all waited patiently as she went back over it in her mind, putting herself back at the scene and making sure that what she had drawn and was now considering matched up. Finally glad that it did, Kensi looked over at the others with a small nod before turning to Eric expectantly.

"Right, so using the points, I can get you a rough trajectory." He said with a small smile, already linking up the four circles that she had drawn towards the area that they had came from. "Luckily, the more shots fired, the more accurate the trajectory."

"I don't think getting shot at would be deemed as lucky, would you?" Sam commented dryly. The smile on Eric's face died as he stopped with what he was doing and froze momentarily.

"No, of course not. Sorry, Kensi." He apologized with a hint of a blush colouring his cheeks that she could only see because of their closer proximity than the others.

"It's alright." She brushed off, knowing that he didn't mean anything by it but just had the tendency to speak before thinking when getting into his work.

"There." Eric exclaimed when he completed his job and narrowed down the possible area where the shooter may have been.

"We'll start there, then." Callen said as he and Sam already began to leave. "Tell Deeks to get onto anything he finds."

"And I'll just sit around here?" Kensi called after him.

"Yeah." He replied, not bothering to turn back to look at her before exiting.

"But-" She began even though they had already left. There were still 3 other people in the room with her, and was cut off pretty quickly anyway.

"Ms. Blye." Hetty effectively stopped her before she could express her irritation. With her words strict and careful, Kensi knew better than to argue when there would be no winning, on her side, at least. "Not only is this case about you, and therefore, you risk compromising it if you go after the evidence that is currently under _LAPD jurisdiction_, but until we find out for sure if there is someone after you, letting you out in the field right now is dangerous. Staying here will kill two birds with one stone. "

"Great. So I'm basically benched." She scoffed, letting her anger seep into her words before following the other woman out of the room, though undoubtedly to another place. "Dammit."

"Is she really ok?" Eric asked softly once he was sure that the agent was out of hearing range, turning towards Nate as he did so.

"I don't know. I'm just going to..." He trailed off uncertainly. Pointing in the direction where the others had gone, he also left the ops room after catching the other man's nod out of the corner of his eye.

Eric sat back down at his work station, replacing his hand-held computer tablet on the side and getting back to the bigger and better version. He didn't have much time to sort things out when permission for a file transfer popped up on his screen. Checking that it was legit, and finding out that it was from a known IP address that he knew as the local police department's, he accepted it. Not a minute later, Eric heard footsteps enter the room once again from behind him.

"Hey, so my guy goes that he'll be able to-" Deeks began until he took in the empty room. "Where's everyone gone?"

"Callen and Sam have gone to find clues about the shooter, Nate's gone after Kensi and Hetty's...gone." Eric informed him, swivelling his chair to look at him as the computer carried on with it's current process.

"I would _really_ start appreciating if someone would start telling me things some time soon!" The liaison officer exclaimed exasperatedly.

"Callen said you should get onto anything you find." He told him with a smirk before turning back to his computer.

"Thanks." Deeks muttered sarcastically before settling himself into the spare chair on the opposite side of the room to where the other man sat. The transfer of the footage was taking it's time, and with nothing to do, his eyes started to wander around the room that he rarely ever spent any time in except to learn more about a case.

He appreciated that the place was probably filled with more advanced technology than he knew what to do with, and even more probably costed more than he thought was possible. But it was a pretty neat place. That was if he ignored the fact that it wasn't the brightest place, and that there was no window.

"You have a girlfriend, Eric?" Deeks asked suddenly, not knowing what to do with himself or the silence. He watched as the man in question stopped typing and turned around slowly with a suspicious look.

"No. Why?"

"Just wondering. Thought it would be nice to get to know the team a bit better, you know?" He said with a light shrug. "Seeing as no-one bothers to tell me anything themselves."

"Ok..." Eric replied, unsure what else there was to say to the self-pitying words. A beep on the computer drew his attention back again, but unfortunately, not Deeks'.

"Did you know that Sam's ma-?"

"Married? Yup." He finished off for him, half distractedly, eager for him to drop the subject and get on with their work before someone, mainly Hetty, learnt that they weren't.

"And that Kensi's go-?" Deeks carried on, either ignoring or not catching on to the hint.

"Going out with Callen? Yes." Eric sighed, pushing away from his desk and picking up his smaller version. "Want to see what your friends sent now?"

Looking at Deeks for the obvious reply to the rhetorical question, he frowned at the blank expression on his face. It was gone sooner than he could even think about it, and Eric began to wonder if he _had_ even seen it or was just imagining things.

"Right, so, the footage." Jumping to his feet, Deeks faced the screen where Eric had pulled up the videos, determined to get back to work and push the new-found knowledge to the back of his head until he could use it.

...

He could hear her before he could see her, slamming shut the door to the small fridge that was in the alcove behind the team's bullpen. Following her with his eyes, Nate wasn't surprised when she looked over and stared straight at him as she took a seat on the couch. Taking the last few steps through the work area, he leant casually against the arch opposite where she sat.

"So..." He began, crossing his arms. "How you feeling?"

"Is that in a psych way, or a general way?" Kensi asked dryly, glancing up at him before returning her glare to the water bottle in her hands.

"A little bit of both." Nate offered. A wry smirk tugged at her lips as she sighed and closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the couch. "And a medical way, too, if you want."

"I'm fine." She brushed off per usual. "It's just been a long day, and it's not even close to ending yet."

"Can I ask you something?" He questioned when it became certain that there was going to be further conversation based on her well being. Sure, he had ways to coerce her to talk, but right then, that wasn't his priority.

"You're going to anyway." Kensi remarked. She opened her eyes when he failed to carry on, and he could see the curiosity in them as she sat up straighter.

"Why do you think someone would be coming after you?" Nate asked her. He thought it was a pretty serious question, but from the scoff that he got in response made him rethink.

"It's part of the job description, isn't it, Nate? I mean, I don't have as many enemies as Callen or Sam, but I'm sure there are a few people out there I've pissed off, too." She commented with a small roll of the eyes. He opened his mouth to argue, that it _wasn't_ a normality to have enemies because of a job, when he spotted the subtle smile that had been on her face fade to a more pensive look.

Nate gave her a few moments to think about whatever that it was that currently ran through her mind. Her hands turned and twisted the water bottle around in her hands, each movement so methodical and exact that it was obvious that it was an automatic reflex.

"Kensi?" He finally said, bringing her out of her thoughts. Her eyes snapped up to his as she shook herself free from herself and putting on a mask that to tell the tale of being _fine_, when she was not.

"No, it's nothing." Nate raised a silent eyebrow at her, letting her know without words just how much he believed that. "Just... Maybe I'm being paranoid. Maybe they weren't aiming for me."

"You're not sure?" The words were mixed with both surprise and slight worry as he pushed himself away from the wall.

"I _was_. But the more I think about it..." Kensi leaned forwards, resting her elbows on her knees as she stared at her hands and the bottle in them. Sighing, she glanced up at him with something that he couldn't ever remember seeing her portray; uncertainty. "It could have been a coincidence, right? Think about it. How could they have known I would be there? I _never_ go to that park. I should have been here, instead. Or at home."

"Maybe they tailed you?" Nate suggested, earning himself a satirical look instead. "Ok, maybe not."

"What if it _was_ a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time?" She shrugged, biting her lower lip as she considered the hypothesis with the shooting. Nate knew that trusting your first instinct was something was drilled into the agents, but he deep down, he probably wasn't the only one who wished this instinct was wrong.

"Then we'll find that out. But until then, you know you're basically grounded, right?" He reminded her cautiously, knowing that technically, he only had the ability to keep someone out of the field based on a medical reason.

"Yes, sir." Kensi laughed dryly before sitting up once again and letting out a deep breath. "I think I'll go see if I can help Deeks or Eric without _compromising_ anything. I can't just be sitting around."

"Ok. And Kensi?" Nate started, claiming her attention before she got up. "If you turn out to be right, that officer's death wasn't your fault."

"Yeah." Her tone betrayed her acceptance, but Nate knew that that would be a conversation for another day, or perhaps later on, depending on how soon they found out the truth.

Lost in his own thoughts, he barely noticed when she threw her water bottle into the bin near to where he stood until it hit it with a metallic _clang_. Unimpressed, Nate met her amused look with his own that was the total opposite. He kept his gaze on her as she stood up though, noticing the slight change in her demeanour as she did so.

"Kensi?" He asked as he saw her blanch suddenly, standing unsteadily on her feet. When she failed to reply, he stepped closer and just about managed to grab a hold of her elbow before she could possibly fall, making him wonder what exactly was wrong with her.

...


	6. Chapter Six

_**A/N: I can't think of much to say other than wow! I cannot believe the response I am getting to this little fiction of mine. Over 100 reviews for 5 chappies? I am ever so grateful! I just hope that I can keep you all intersted and entertained for as long as I keep on writing this.**_

_**Right, so this is the longest chapter of the story so far. Whether that'll help or hinder, I'm not sure. Hope you enjoy and please R&R =D**_

* * *

Kensi sat on the couch once again, one hand holding her head while the other one was stretched out in front of her towards where Nate sat on the chair that he had pulled up. Ever grateful for the secluded area of the position of the couch, she rubbed her head once again before looking up at him expectantly. She had to wait a couple more seconds before he reciprocated, letting go of her hand.

"Orthostatic hypotension." He announced after having felt for her pulse for the past 2 minutes. She had refused to go to his office or, worse, the medical room like he had suggested to check her over, so he had had to make do with what he had.

"What?" She asked, not bothering to hide the fact that she had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

"It's what caused you to faint-"

"I didn't faint." Kensi corrected him abruptly. Nate pursed his lips and nodded before carrying on.

"_Almost _faint. It's caused by your blood pressure dropping suddenly when standing up." He explained, leaning back against his seat to give her a bit more space to breathe. "I can't be sure until I check your blood pressure, though, but it fits."

"Does it explain the headaches?" She ignored the heavy hint that he tried to send her, knowing that there was no point in addressing it when she had no intention in changing her mind.

"Headaches and excessive thirst can be symptoms." Nate confirmed with a tone that took her back to the days of doctor visits as a child.

"Excessive thirst?" Kensi questioned, raising an eyebrow in confusion. Instead of replying, Nate nodded towards the trash can where she had thrown the water bottle that she had drunk in less than 5 minutes. Realisation came to her as she noticed what he was indicating towards. "Right."

"Also explains why you said you felt better after you laid down for a while. It helped your body to raise the blood pressure." He explained casually. Kensi was glad for that.

After spending the past hour with the constant pounding in her head, she had wondered what it was that had caused it to go away earlier that day, and how to replicate it. Although it wasn't gone entirely, the light-headedness helped ease it slightly. That, and the fact that she had more pressing matters on hand, which didn't include playing 21 questions with their operational psychologist.

"Have you ever had low blood pressure before?" He asked, snapping her out of her thoughts.

"Don't think so." Kensi frowned when he took on a pensive look. "What?"

"Nothing." Nate immediately replied, earning himself a sceptical glare that he did his best to ignore. "Been eating properly?"

"Yes."

"It can be caused by stress."

"I'm not stressed." She insisted.

"Being an operative is a very stressful job." Nate tried to reason, though to no avail; something that he could have predicted after knowing the agent for as long as he did.

"I've been doing it for a few years now. I'm not _stressed_." Kensi reiterated with a bit more emphasise, hoping that he would get the message and let it go.

"Stress can be built up." He pushed on, standing up and taking the chair back to where it belonged in the main area of the bullpen.

"Nate! I'm _not _stressed." She practically growled in impatience. "Annoyed, frustrated and a bit agitated, sure. But not stressed."

"Ok." Nate said, giving in at the sound of her words. The last thing that he wanted was to make her feel worse, either physically or emotionally. "Try to eat something salty or doing some light exercise. That'll raise it."

"Am I ok to go now?" Kensi asked after accepting at his advice. She might not like talking to or seeing a doctor, but she trusted Nate, and if he gave her instructions on how to feel better, she would do it.

"I'd suggest resting-" He began, only to cut himself off when she stood up anyway and began to walk past him. "But yeah, ok. You can go."

"Thanks, Nate."

...

Heeding to Nate's advice, Kensi had snatched herself a small packet of salted chips from a cupboard before ascending up the stairs. She had eaten half of it by the time she reached the upper landing, not realising just how hungry she had been with everything that had seemed to have happened since she had last taken the time to have bite to eat.

"Hey. So, look what I got my hands on." Deeks announced almost as soon as she entered the room. The words were spoken with a hurried excitement, mixed with a hint of smugness that helped her leave some of her concerns about everything behind. He wouldn't be so chipper if he hadn't came through with something good.

"I'll consider being impressed if it helps." She retorted light-heartedly, coming to a stop next to him and facing the big screen. His eyes jumped from the screen to her, and then down to her hand, landing on the now-empty packet she held. Rolling her own eyes, she tossed the item onto the table behind them to put it out of sight and get back onto what they were previously focusing on. "Well?"

"Oh. Eric, roll it." Deeks commanded, blinking himself out of the small faze he had gone into as he turned towards their tech operator. The latter was currently sat with his chair turned towards the screen, still holding the handheld device to control the video that was at the moment paused. As soon as he was given the command, Eric pressed the play button, only for the footage to replay itself from the beginning. "Wait, not this bit..."

"Hold on. The file isn't the normal format that we use, so I'm... There." Eric faltered as he did what he did best, finally managing to get the video to the beginning of the part that they wanted. The camera had clearly been a bit far from where the incident had occurred, but it was all pretty easy to see after it had been zoomed in to the specific area where Kensi had been in that park. It was over in less than a minute, and even though it showed exactly what she remembered from the actual event, it still seemed surreal to see it play out so fluently in the screen before her. "And there we have it."

"Have the LAPD seen this?" Kensi asked immediately, trying not to sound too eager, nor too affected by what she had just seen and was still sinking in. After seeing it from another point of view, there was no more doubt about it; those bullets were _definitely_ meant for her.

"Yeah, and they've dropped any charges and suspicion." Deeks informed her and she let out a reluctant sigh. Although it was great to have that off her shoulders, it didn't make a difference to anything else. She always knew that they would figure out that she was innocent, but the rest of it was what was eating at her more.

"Right." She nodded and crossed her arms, turning towards Eric as she went onto the more pressing matter at hand. "Can we see where the shots are actually coming from?"

"I can't see the _exact_ place from this angle, but I can get us a much more accurate area to focus on." He told her, zooming out to the original view once again as he started to do what he had said by tracing back the trajectories of the bullets. This time, with the actual angles and pinpoint places, the result would be something more reliable to go on.

"Looks like you were right, though. They seem to all be aimed at you." Deeks pointed out while tilting his head slightly to watch the footage that was being played a few screenshots at a time as Eric worked on it.

"Yeah." She agreed with a bit of uneasiness as she watched the images again. Getting shot at wasn't anything new, but usually, it was a general thing. Even after being made, or making a bust, whilst undercover, she had never been shot at because of _her_. And she'd be lying is she didn't admit to at least herself that it was a little scary.

"Except for the one that hit the cop." He added, breaking her out of her thoughts.

"I was close." Kensi shrugged, watching the scene play in normal time to see just how close she really had been.

"Misaim?" Deeks suggested, and she could only offer him another shrug in response.

"Maybe."

"Could be dealing with an amateur." He carried on. When she failed to reply, Deeks looked over at her, fixing her with a questioning look that she brushed aside by not even sparing him a glance.

"Do we have a location, yet, Eric?" She asked, pushing herself away from the table and a bit closer to the screen ahead of her with careful steps.

"Yes, and I'm sending it to Callen and Sam right now. They're there, anyway." Eric informed her with his typical innocent smile. The sight of it snapped her back into her role of an agent; pushing aside her personal feelings for a while in hopes that no-one would see or comment on her small bout of withdrawal. The last thing that she needed, and wanted, was to be pulled off the case and put under surveillance because she was getting too emotionally invested for all the wrong reasons.

"Ok, good. Let's see where." The area in question was suddenly highlighted in red on a new picture that offered a wider view of the park and more. It was a fairly large space, with everything from buildings, both residential and offices, to roads, alleys and open spaces. Taking it all into consideration, Kensi did her best to try and help out by using what she could remember. "Alright, so each shot rang out pretty loud, and considering the range of where the bullets were aimed is moreorless specific, I think we can narrow out anything high up."

"Height equals distance, equals less noise." Deeks offered in explanation, though neither of the other two present were interested. Instead, Eric eliminated any tall buildings without a possible view from the ground floor, and Kensi watched the red rectangular area change to a spotted blob. "You know, I'm surprised they never used something to cover the noise."

The nonchalant comment made Kensi pause for a second, before turning to face her partner. His words were surprisingly correct, making her wonder whether she was missing something that seemed so obvious now.

"Maybe..." She started as it all fell into place. "Maybe they were too close. Maybe they _did_ use a muffler, but it didn't work-"

"Because they were so close, it would be heard anyway." Deeks finished off, catching onto her train of thoughts

"Which means it was outside somewhere. If it was inside, the noise would have been muted more." Kensi concluded. Without even thinking about it, the case became just like any other one that they dealt with on a daily basis. It was only when she took the time that it hit her that it was more personal this time, but she forced that away as she did with the mild headache that has decided to come back again.

"Ok, so ruling out all buildings. That leaves the main road, side roads and alleyways." Eric informed them as he cleared the red highlighting from every building that was in the initial possible area where the shooter had been.

"Take out anywhere where visibility is less than 100%." She told him, momentarily putting herself in the shooter's shoes and trying to get into his mind set.

It took a moment for the logarithm that Eric must have already set up with the picture, clearly from their own database, to rule out places where there would be a perfect sight into the park and at the place the shooter at aimed at. When it worked, though, the redness on the screen was considerably less than before. Walking up to the screen, Kensi zoomed into the places left for a better view.

"Doubt they would risk the main road, especially if no-one saw them." Deeks said, pointing out to the road that ran almost parallel to the park, but she merely shook her head at his words.

"No-one _claims_ to have seen them. Big difference." She dismissed, scanning across the places that they were left with. Coming across an empty area of sorts, Kensi zoomed in a bit closer, wondering why it was still highlighted when there was a thick coverage in the form of bushes around it.

"What's that?" Deeks asked after watching her pondering over it for a few minutes, hoping she had just remembered something, only to let that go when she failed to share any bright ideas she may have had.

"Um... A fence of some sort." Kensi murmured, still carefully going around the area to find the place that hadn't ruled it out.

"Private property." He added in understanding just as she found the small gap that she was looking for. It wasn't much, but their database picture quality was second to none and became easy to see once she got to the right place.

"Trespassing gets past that. Looks like a clear view to the park, too." She informed him after zooming out once again and drawing an almost straight line from the gap in the bushes to where the shots at been aimed at her in the park.

"_That's_ impressive." Eric commented from where he had been sitting quietly, watching them do their jobs, from his seat near his work station.

"Thanks." Kensi smiled before tapping on the empty plot of land. "Find the address?"

...

Having received Eric's initial coordinates, along with a map, for the area that they had managed to narrow down their search parameters too, the two of them had made their way over to the corner of one of the side streets that ran off the main. The possibilities were endless, and neither one of them were sure where to begin. Sure, they had had harder tasks before, but when someone shot at one of their own, time was of an essence. Luckily, before they could get into _another_ argument about how they should tackle it, Callen's cell began to ring.

"Callen." He answered in his usual fashion, briefly glancing at the caller ID that simply said 'withheld'.

_"Hey, so we think we've found the place where the shooter hid. Eric's sending you the address right now." _Kensi's voice came over the line, sounding a little less angry than earlier. Her words were exactly what he wanted to hear. Seeing Sam throw him a questioning look, he beckoned him closer from where he surveyed the surrounding places from the other side of the street. The phone beeped as it received another file.

"That's right over there." Sam commented as Callen put the phone on speaker so that they could all confer easier. He followed the line of sight that his partner had just pointed out, frowning when he saw an obstacle in their course.

"Behind the fence?"

"_It's private land." _Deeks informed them.

"Who owns it?" Sam asked as they made their way over to it. Although it was surrounded by bushes, there was a clear entrance in the form of a fenced door on the side facing a smaller road; almost like an alleyway.

_"Some business guy. Bought it with the intention of building new offices, but got his proposal turned down. He's been out of the country for the past week." _He filled them in, tagging on the last bit in anticipation of the following question. Although he might have been the newest member of their elite team, he had gotten to know them pretty well in the time he had been there.

"Lock's been picked." Callen observed when they got there, turning the said lock over in his free hand before tugging on it with a bit of strength to pull it off completely.

"This stretch of land has got to be worth a bit, and he uses a simple lock on it? There's something wrong with rich people." Sam scoffed, earning himself an amused look from his partner.

"_He must have surveillance just to be on the safe side. Eric-" _Kensi began, her voice fading as she must have turned away from the phone to talk to their tech operator.

"_Already on it._" They heard him tell her even though his voice was much further away than the agent's had been.

"There's a lot of coverage around this place. Makes sense, I guess." Sam noted as they carefully entered the fenced off plot of land and took a wary look around. The high bushes prevented them from being able to see out except for the small excerpts between the leaves and broken branches.

"Not being seen means not being able to see out, though." Callen stated blankly, following the perimeter of the fence with his gaze.

"_There's a small gap about 15 feet to your left. It's got a perfect view, too."_ Deeks instructed them over the phone; they must have been tracking them via GPS to know their exact location. Turning to face his partner, Callen rolled his eyes to see that the other man had already started to make his way towards the place.

"And a perfect hiding spot." Sam told him as he approached where the ex-SEAL was standing by a small hill that came up waist high and looked like it had been chopped in half by the fence. The weird part, in his opinion, was that the hill was still in shape _inside_ the plot rather than the outside. But true to what Deeks had said, there was a small gap between two hedges just off the centre of the top of the hill.

"Guy on the grassy knoll?" Callen asked sceptically, raising an eyebrow as Sam merely shrugged back.

"History does repeat itself." He remarked with a small smirk.

"_Ok, I've got the surveillance footage."_ Eric's voice sounded much clearer this time, bringing back the two agents' attention to the people on the other end of the phone. The same, however, couldn't be said for them. A little buzz could be heard, most probably from the footage that they were watching, along with some murmurings that indicated that they had most probably moved away from the phone.

"Well?" Callen prompted when they both got fed up with the waiting. They were, after all, technically breaking the law by being where they were, and one run-in with the law was enough for the day.

"_He knows the place." _The distant, and slightly distracted, voice of the only female agent came in response. The frown in her words was clear for anyone to hear._ "He's keeping his face away from the camera."_

"Can you see where he stood? Or what he used?" He asked, hoping that they hadn't come to a dead end on the only lead they currently had already.

"_Blind spot. Of course."_ Deeks replied after a brief pause where they must have gone over that part of the footage again.

"He must have staked the place out." Sam said as he took a look around to try and spot the cameras. Unfortunately, not knowing where they were exactly, he could only see the one that was pretty obviously on show for trespassers to know there was surveillance.

"Or knew the owner." Callen countered.

"_Wait, what's that? Pull in closer here."_ Kensi's sudden change in tone caught their attention, both turning back to the conversation that was happening on the other side of the phone. There was nothing they could do except to wait for one of them to explain what it is that she had seen,

"_Looks like a...hole?"_ Eric replied in confusion, piquing the interest of the two agents in the field. Simultaneously, they both looked around where they stood for a hole, even though it would have been something they would have seen before if it were out on show.

"_Did he just put something in there?"_Despite Deeks' incredulous tone, it was enough for them to at least try and search for.

"Where?" Sam asked immediately.

"_Go further left from where you are."_ Kensi instructed them. _"About another 5 feet or so. There's some grass and leaves covering it."_

Doing as she said, they treaded carefully and kept an eye out for anything odd. Callen kicked some debris out of his way just to be sure that he wasn't going to sudden fall into a dug out hole. The method paid off when, more-or-less 5 feet from where they had been before, he cleared away from leaves with his foot, only to find more underneath. Although it was mostly hidden by the bushes, giving it a reason to be covered in many fallen leaves, he was sure there wasn't just more earth underneath these leaves.

"Found it." He said to both his partner and the others back at the headquarters. Sam glanced down at the clearing once he had reached there before turned back to Callen, who simply nodded towards the hole after meeting his eyes.

"What? You found it." Sam shook his head and crossed his arms, knowing exactly what he was getting at.

"I'm holding the phone."

"Give it here, then."

"No." Callen dismissed coolly, unconsciously holding the phone a bit more out of his reach. At Sam's unimpressed look, he held back a smirk and offered him another method. "Flip a coin for it?"

"Do you _have_ a coin?"He asked, sceptically. The smirk that Callen had been holding back pulled at his lips sheepishly. Rolling his eyes, Sam held out his hand, tightened into a fist in the universal gesture to an invite of a game of 'rock, paper, scissors'. "On three."

"_Anytime today, guys..."_ Kensi said in a mix of amusement and agitation, no doubt already knowing what it was that they were taking their time doing. It did nothing to hurry them up, though; both still concentrating hard on which one to choose to win. In the end, there could only be one winner, and as Sam drew scissors and Callen stuck with rock, the matter was solved.

"Yeah, Sam. Anytime today." Callen repeated mockingly, waiting by the side of where Sam had crouched down and pulled on gloves in preparation to see what was inside the hole, if anything. Clearing out the rest of the grass and leaves that had been used as a fairly good cover in addition to the bushes, they both peered down into it to see if they could possibly make anything out. It wasn't much wider than a foot in diameter, but it was pretty deep. "Can you see anything in it?"

"Nothing but darkness." Sam replied, trying to push away a few of the branches of the hovering hedge in hopes that it would allow more light through and into the hole. Unfortunately, it didn't work. "Do you have a flashlight?"

"I don't have a coin; why would I have a flashlight?" He retorted dryly and earning himself a glare from the exasperated agent who was still trying to see through the darkness and into the hole. "Can't you just... You know, stick your hand in?"

"Why don't you?" Sam rebuked, raising an eyebrow when Callen merely held up his hands in defence.

"Hey, you lost, fair and square." He reminded him, who sighed in response and did what the senior agent had suggest. There was not much else that he could do without wasting any more time.

"If I lose my arm-" Sam grumbled, slowly reaching down and making sure to brace himself on his knees before he fell.

"-I'll buy you a new one." Callen finished off with a laugh, only to turn serious when a small crease formed on the other man's forehead. "What?"

"I think I found something." He muttered, digging further down until the edge of the hole came to past halfway of his upper arm and he could feel something solid beneath his hand. "Oh, I've definitely found something."

"_What is it?"_ Deeks asked over the phone as Sam grasped onto the item and pulled it up gently.

"Looks like you were right, Kensi." Callen commented wryly. "It was a rifle."

...


	7. Chapter Seven

**_A/N: I'm sorry, once again, for the delay. Real life got in the way [I know, I know, why do we need one of those?]. But I'm finally done with this chapter. It's kind of a filler chapter, but it's needed, so I am sorry if it drags on. I know some of you are waiting for another Callen/Kensi scene, and I swear, this chapter had a huge one in it at the end. However, I got carried away with the first scene, and then the second one happened and there was no space/time for the intended one. BUT I swear, the next chapter will have that, and most possibly more._**

**_Anyways, enough of that. I hope you enjoy this chapter. Please R&R._**

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At his desk in the bullpen, Deeks would be lying if he didn't say he was glad to get out of the claustrophobic ops room for a little while. It had been a couple of hours since Callen and Sam had returned with their finding, though that was soon taken away to forensics. The only information that they had received from it so far was that the gun was a match to the one that had killed the LAPD officer, and that it had been scrubbed clean except for a very smudged print, something that was near unlikely to get them a match on who had held the gun before Sam. But any and every single thing was of importance, and it had been Hetty's order for the forensics to try and reform the print into something more usable and run it. The science behind it was over all their heads and the only thing they had understood was that it would take time to get it done.

So instead, they had focused on the crime scene photos and papers that the LAPD had sent them after sharing the information of the shooter. It was _technically_ joint jurisdiction, but having experience at both departments, Deeks knew that there would be no waiting on this case. One side wanted to find a cop killer, while the other wanted to find the person who tried to kill their agent. With both sides having the same evidence and leads at that moment, there was no telling on who would get there first, or whether the other side would get a chance to speak with the person once the ones who found him were through with him.

That was if they ever found him, because at the rate it was going, they had nothing apart from the rifle. Although, if there was something that he had learnt in his time at NCIS, it was that they could get the possible from the impossible. Which, he supposed, was why everyone else was scattered around the place doing their own thing relating to the case.

Sam was going over the footage from where the shooter had hidden once again on the screen in their bullpen, trying to see if he could spot something that they hadn't, while Callen was off speaking to Hetty about something that Deeks had no idea about. He could also see Nate on the couch, reading a file and occasionally glancing up both generally and at Kensi, who sat at her desk, skimming through her past cases and undercover works to see if she could find anyone who stuck out as having a vendetta against her, or had a recent run-in with the law again. And he was still going through the evidence photos and papers. Yet, still no-one had found anything new to help them.

That was until Eric came bounding down the stairs, whistling loud for their attentions, and towards them with more enthusiasm than them all put together.

"I'm assuming you have something." Sam commented, moving out of the way to allow the tech access to the TV.

"I do." He confirmed, and both Deeks and Kensi stood up from their desks to near the screen. "It's not much, though."

"We'll take anything, right now." Kensi told him, sitting up on the side of the desk that she had just rounded.

"Ok, well, firstly, I ran the serial on the gun to see if I could find who owned it. Surprise number 1; it was unregistered." He said dryly as he turned to face them all, including Nate, who stood in at the threshold of the bullpen and the alcove, and Callen, who had arrived a second later.

Deeks watched subtly out of the corner of his eyes as their team leader went over to lean against the table next to where Kensi sat. It wasn't much, but from where he stood slightly off to their side, he was sure that Callen was invading her personal space just that bit more than would be considered professional. It was an obvious sign of what Eric had told him being true, and he had to wonder how he missed it earlier. Although, Deeks guessed, it wasn't something that anyone would pay attention to unless they knew it was there, and there was the fact that they were both naturals at hiding things that needed to be hidden.

Mentally shaking his head when he saw that Eric had brought something else up on the screen, he willed himself to think about the case once again rather than his friends' personal lives, which he had to admit to himself, was kind of creepy.

"What's surprise number 2?" Sam asked.

"I managed to get a hold of surveillance videos from around the area where you found the gun to try and find out where the shooter had come from, and had gone." Eric told him before loading up the clips that he had cut out as being the most important.

"Lemme guess. You found nothing?" Kensi asked with a smirk, to which the man in question replied with a cheeky smile.

"Au contraire. I got him on tape driving to and from the main road by the park." He informed her and played the short footage scenes that showed what they assumed was the same man who had shied away from the surveillance cameras at the private land driving an old, brown and beaten car. The video was taken by speed cameras, it seemed, if the quality of them and the focus on the car was anything to go by.

"So we got a name?" Deeks questioned, a bit eager, hoping that there were better views into the car, or better, of the shooter out of the car.

"No. Surprise number 2. He kept his face hidden and covered. Shades, hat and a scarf. Head straight but down." Eric answered, pulling up a small collection of photos. They were all, as Deeks had wished for, of the shooter out of the car. However, like Eric had said, none captured his face fully. "This is the best image I have of him."

"Any chance you recognise him, Kensi?" Callen asked. Although he looked serious, with his arms crossed and glancing briefly from the TV screen ahead to her, there was a teasing underline to his words that simply earned him a roll of the eyes from the agent next to him. "Thought not."

"He knew the place pretty well. Must have been planning it for a while." Nate spoke up in his usual fashion to add his thoughts.

"That's impossible, Nate. There was no way I would have gone to that park today, _ever_, except because Deeks took my car." Kensi reminded him, shaking her head as she did her best not to scream in frustration that they were going around in circles once again.

"Maybe he was thorough. Took every possibility into consideration and made a plan for it all." Callen suggested half-heartedly and was surprised when Nate considered it and replied.

"Would explain the extra effort into the disguise if he was exerting an obsessive behaviour over it." He said, earning a look of incredulity from the others that made him falter a bit. "That's what I think, at least."

"How did no-one see him carry a rifle from there to the other side of the road?" Deeks questioned sceptically as he eyed the current enlarged picture of the shooter in his disguise. He couldn't see the weapon from that, but they knew that he had brought it with him and left it there.

"Because..." Eric trailed off, already having come across an image that would explain the question, which he now brought up. "That's how."

"Guitar case. Clever." He reasoned with a sense of uncertainty, not sure whether it was indeed clever or just eerily OCD.

"What did you get on the car?" Callen asked to change the subject and back on track.

"Ran the licence. It was reported stolen an hour before and dumped less than an hour after. Taken from a side road with no cameras nearby and dumped in an alley way." Eric replied whilst clearing the screen of all the images and videos he had put up as he came to an end of what he had found. "And that's surprise number 3, in case you're wondering."

"So when you said you didn't have much, you were actually being serious?" Sam remarked, half indignantly, half mockingly.

"Yes." He simply answered with his typical look of innocence as Sam rolled his eyes and turn away from the screen to look at the others.

"Ok, so we have where he came from and where he went with the car. How about before and afterwards?" Kensi asked Eric, who merely shook his head.

"Nothing. I hate to say it, but he's _good_."

"A professional." Sam supplied, grudgingly.

"Or paranoid." Callen countered his partner as per usual.

"This is all well and good, but aren't we back at square one again?" Deeks asked them all, wondering if it was only him who had realised just how much progress they had really made. When he got no reply apart from a shrug from Eric and a solitary nod from his partner, he raised an eyebrow. Hoping for something a bit more optimistic, that had certainly not been the response he had predicted. "Ok, so now what?"

"Now, it's time we call it a night." Hetty announced from where she stood at the entrance of the bullpen. Deeks was sure that he wasn't the only who hadn't hear her approach, but being the closest, it had made him jump. The quiet laughter from behind him as he spun to face the little lady told him that his attempt at trying to regain his composure hadn't worked to erase his embarrassment. "There's nothing you can do now. It's late night and the forensics on the gun won't be back until morning, earliest. Tomorrow's going to be a busy day."

No-one spoke up to either argue or agree with her, and Deeks wondered if it was because they were all as conflicted as he was. They had been going over everything they had for hours now, and as Hetty had said, until the forensic results come in, there would be nothing more for them to do other than go over it all _again_. But the fact that going home for the night meant leaving the case open and untouched for a full 8 hours or so seemed like giving in for the time being, and he wasn't really up to doing that either. Not to mention, a lot could happen in 8 hours.

"Ok, then." He murmured as Hetty left without waiting for an answer. Turning back around again, he was a bit surprised to see that they were all now dispersed, with Nate and Eric actually gone, and preparing to leave. "Really? We head home?"

"Hetty's right. There's nothing else we can do now." Callen replied with a small shrug that he assumed meant to reassure him, but the tight look on his face said more about his reluctance to leave everything be than anything else.

"May as well catch up on the sleep before the case actually starts." Sam added, sighing more out of tiredness and agitation than annoyance. Accepting the two statements at facts, he knew that the only way to get this case closed would be to start back on it tomorrow, and so he copied the others and began to grab his things to leave too.

"Deeks, my keys?" Kensi asked, or rather demanded, politely as she approached his desk. He had to think about it for a minute before remembering that he had placed it in his desk drawer to keep it safe in fear of her wrath had he lost it.

"I think you'll find your car to be in perfect condition. I even filled the tank up for you." He informed her while dropping the keys in her outstretched hand

"Thanks." She replied, the shock clear in both her tone and face.

"Hold on. Didn't you go home in that car earlier?" Sam asked her as she turned back to go to her desk and grab her things.

"And...?" Kensi prompted nonchalantly, shouldering her bag and leaning against the table to hear the rest of his point. The answer, however, came from the man next to her, much to her irritation.

"Sam's right. Bet you took the usual route too." Callen said in a way that almost seemed chiding if it weren't for the challenging look on his face.

"Yeah, but no-one followed us." She replied reluctantly, knowing exactly where the conversation was going. "Right, Deeks?"

"Um... No?" He answered a bit uncertainly. Although he knew for sure that no-one had followed them, he wasn't quite sure which answer would get him the less grief. In the end, he went with agreeing with neither, not fancying getting caught in the middle of his partner or the other two. Somehow, they were both evenly scary. "It's two against one, Kensi. Sorry."

The only thing that she could do to rebuke was to throw him a dirty look before her attention was claimed elsewhere, which he reckoned was really lucky for him. He had annoyed, teased and pissed off Kensi before, but he had never gone against her, at least not to the others on their team. They mostly worked as what they were; partners. Though some things, Deeks supposed, just had to take priority over backing his partner, and he was sure that keeping her alive was one of those things.

"I'll bring the car." Callen told her, snatching her keys out of her hand before she could do anything about that, or about Deeks' words. "You can take mine."

He threw his car keys onto the desk next to her, but Kensi didn't make a move to get it. Instead, she looked around, starting with Deeks and meeting each of their eyes with a narrowed look of repressed exasperation. Finally, realising that she wasn't going to get out of this, she pushed away from where she stood and started to make her away out.

"You forgot the keys." Callen pointed out, watching in slight amusement as she simply carried on.

"I'm getting another one." She informed him.

"What's wrong with mine?"

"Where do I start?" Kensi snapped back with a huff, leaving the area known as 'theirs' without a final goodbye.

"Take the other route, yeah?" He called after her, and he could almost hear her roll her eyes from the other side of the room.

"Yes, I know. I'm not a rookie." She called back before finally disappearing out of their sight.

Deeks silently watched as the other two men looked at each other, neither one saying anything, at least nothing that he could hear. But by the way that Sam nodded, albeit so minutely that he wondered if he had actually seen it, made him entertain the thought that maybe the two of them had a secret way of communicating without words. Perhaps that's what happened after being partners for 3 years.

Barely a couple of minutes had passed since Kensi had left when Sam followed. There was something going on, Deeks could tell, and it had no doubt to do with the junior agent. It had seemed odd that they had let her go off on her own, but he should have guessed that there was a backup plan to it. In actuality, it made more sense, knowing how much Kensi would argue having anyone of them escorting her, having experienced it earlier.

"See you in the morning, Deeks." Callen's words snapped him out of his thoughts as he passed by his desk, where he was still slowly getting his things together.

"See ya." He replied measly, standing behind his desk until he was the only one left. It might have been good to get out of the ops room, but being alone downstairs in the huge and somehow silent hacienda late at night was scary enough for him to get a move on and simply pick up anything he needed before heading out.

...

It was only when she was over halfway home that she was certain that she wasn't making things up. Looking out for things out of the ordinary came as second nature for her, especially when they were either undercover or in the middle of a high risk case. Considering that she was shot at that afternoon, Kensi assumed that the latter applied right then. And as she peered into her rear-view mirror, she was sure that she wasn't getting paranoid. The car she spied was most definitely tailing her.

She should have guessed that she wouldn't have been able to make it all the way home without being followed. The fact that she recognised the car, though, was what bugged her the most. If he had wanted to remain inconspicuous, then he could have tried a bit harder at staying hidden.

Letting out a deep breath, Kensi reached for her phone and pressed the speed dial number 3 before putting it on speaker and throwing it back onto the passenger's seat. It rang for about 5 rings, and just when she thought he wouldn't pick up, he did.

"You know, Sam, for someone who's been doing this for a few years, you really can't tail." She told him dryly, not letting him even say a word until she was done.

"_I dunno what you're talking about. I'm heading home."_ He replied matter-of-factly, though she could clearly hear the smile in the words. She was certain that if they weren't having this conversation over the phone, she wouldn't be able to keep back the urge to hit something at the sight of it. That, and the fact that the risk of perhaps breaking something in the car she currently drove was way too high. She did not fancy facing Hetty first thing in the morning and having to explain what had happened.

"You live in the other direction!" She exclaimed instead.

"_You're confused, Kensi." _Sam teased good-naturedly, and the familiarity of it easily cut down her at her anger._ "This is another route, remember?"_

"Speaking of, how did you know I was going this way?" She asked him, genuinely confused as to how he would know how to follow her when she was making journey that she rarely ever took. Of course, even since Dom had been kidnapped, they all alternated their routes frequently, but this was one of the longest and the most avoided by herself.

"_I didn't."_He insisted and Kensi guessed that he got Eric to track her cell GPS. It made sense, and she had to admit that it was something that she would do too. Yet, his denial of it ticked her off once again, but all that she could do was glare at the car via her rear-view mirror.

"I can look out for myself, thank you very much." She told him tightly, and if it were anyone besides those on the team, they would have dropped the subject at the sound of her voice. The tension in it was probably high enough to be sent through the phone and onto the other side. But it didn't seem to affect him.

"_Never said you couldn't." _Sam brushed off passively.

"And if someone was to shoot me now, then you being about 4 cars back isn't going to stop them." Kensi scoffed. She might have been pointing out the obvious but it was the truth and backed her argument.

"_Good thing I'm not here to stop them, then."_ He countered easily, chuckling. Shaking her head to her herself in both reluctant amusement and vexation, she reached across where her cell laid and unceremoniously hung up. A smirk graced her features when she heard Sam beep his horn not a second later, although he didn't try to call her back.

The rest of the drive to her place went smoothly and quietly, apart from the radio that she had turned on and managed to tune only a few minutes before she turned onto the street where her apartment building was located. Sam's car was still an eyesore in her rear-view mirror, though he was no longer trying to hide behind 4 cars.

Parking in her usual space, Kensi exited her car and locked it behind her before heading over to where the familiar silver vehicle had pulled up by the curb side not too far away. The passenger's side window was already rolled down for her as she reached the car and leant her arms against it to talk to the driver. Her initial annoyance at the situation had worn away with time and the fact that no matter what she did or said, it wouldn't change anything, anyway. And considering the long day that she had had, mixed with the fact that it was pretty late, Kensi couldn't be bothered to put any energy into any emotions that she knew would just be a waste.

"I thought you were on your way home?" She asked him casually.

"I am." Sam replied as he turned to look at her, the streetlights giving them the visibility to see each other.

"Really?" Kensi said dryly. " Didn't know my place was on your route."

"It can be. You know how I like to mix it up sometimes." A smile accompanied his words, one filled with charm and teasing that made her smile back.

"Of course." She agreed mock-seriousness, showing how much she really did believe him. He merely raised an eyebrow at her words but she ignored it and asked the question she had originally came to ask. "How long are you going to wait?"

"Until you stop talking to me." He answered nonchalantly and she laughed at his words.

"Liar." She rebuked, but let the topic be as she pushed away from the car and took a step back. "Goodnight, Sam."

"Night, Kens." Sam replied likewise, to which she nodded and turned away to make her way to her place, telling herself that she didn't care anymore whether he did indeed stay or leave.

...


	8. Chapter Eight

**_A/N: Apologies once again for the long wait! I did hit a bit of a wall with this chapter, not knowing what to include and where to end. Finally, I decided to leave it as this so that, 1, I could update today, and 2, so that it's a standalone chapter just these two. Just to take a small break from all the drama =P_**

**_As always, I do hope you enjoy it. Please R&R with any comments you may have. Happy holidays!_**

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Her apartment was the same as it had been when she had gone for that walk that afternoon. She dropped her stuff by the couch, as per usual, before going to her bedroom to shun her shoes and anything else that made her feel weighed down. It was only when she re-entered the main room did she realise how empty the place was and why. Considering that she had taken the longest route, she had to wonder where Callen had gotten to with her car.

The thought was soon pushed to the back of her mind with a mental scowl as she remembered Sam's actions. If he wouldn't let her drive home by herself, then there was no way Callen was going to let her spend the night by herself. She appreciated their concern, and fully understood where they were coming from, but it was times like these that she hated being the only female on the team. And it didn't help that she had been ill for most of the day, either.

Kensi inhaled deeply as she urged herself to let it all go for the moment. It was all out of her hands, every small bit of it, but that didn't do much to relieve the pressing feeling of apprehension in the pit of her stomach. The feeling was familiar to one that usually settled before going undercover when she considered the worst case scenario if things went wrong. That feeling had never lasted this long, though, because nerves were what would probably lead her to that scenario. Being someone else got rid of the tightness, but there was no-one else for her to be right then except for herself.

Instead, the only thing that she could rely on now would be to take her mind off of everything that had happened. The only trouble was that there wasn't really much she could either think of or be bothered to do. Wandering into the kitchen in hopes of inspiration, Kensi opened the fridge to see if she could perhaps make something to eat although she wasn't particularly hungry.

She barely had time to consider the items in the refrigerator when her attention was claimed by the familiar sound of the front door opening and shutting. It took a few more seconds before Callen reached the kitchen, but it wasn't enough for her to move.

"Hey." He greeted her when he spotted her as he made his way over to the small breakfast bar on the side of the room.

"Hey, where did yo-?" Kensi began, stopping herself when she answered her own question when she noticed the takeaway bag that he had placed onto the table.

"Thought you'd be hungry." Callen said casually and watching her carefully.

"Thanks." She replied unenthusiastically, and closed the fridge door to turn to face him.

"You ok?" He asked her, picking up on her tone and her slow movements that he could put down to tiredness if he didn't know her better. If she was tired, she would either be in bed by now or laying on the couch watching pointless late night TV instead of puttering around in the kitchen.

"Yeah." Kensi sighed in response, betraying her answer. Callen raised an eyebrow at her and she shook her head while closing the distance between them. Reaching out to lay a gentle hand on his chest, she realised exactly what she had been looking for to take her mind off of everything that had happened that day.

It didn't take anything else for him to catch on, especially when she leant in and brushed her lips against his teasingly before pulling away with a sly smile and the usual sparkle in her eyes that had been missing almost all day. Wrapping an arm around her waist, he pulled her closer to him until she was practically flush against his body.

This time it was Callen who initiated the kiss, making sure that it was a more intimate one and not one that left space for reasoning or any kind of thought otherwise. He felt her other hand rest next to the one already on him before they curled slightly into the fabric of his top as if it would somehow pull them closer.

"The food?" He asked when they broke apart to breathe, lightly resting his forehead against Kensi's before raising his other hand to softly trace her cheek when she pulled him back into a quick chaste kiss.

"It'll keep." She murmured with a smirk that mirrored his before leading them both out of the kitchen and towards her bedroom.

...

Trailing his fingers down across her back as she rolled over and shuffled closer to where he laid, Callen couldn't help but to smile when he felt her leg slide over his before she laid her head on his shoulder. The sheets rustled quietly as she got herself comfortable against him, a hand lightly flitting across his chest before resting in the middle.

Although it wasn't anything new, he watched every movement carefully. It still amazed him just how different the woman in his arms could be when she was wholly and absolutely herself. How much affection she could give, and even need. That wasn't to say that her toughness and independence were entirely lost; her determination to show that she could take care of her own was still as strong, but she had broken down her walls, slowly but surely, for him. And in turn, he had learnt to do the same for her.

With the job that they had, sometimes it became hard to remember that behind her fight to be seen as an equal and not just as a woman in a primarily men's job and underneath all his aliases and unknown past, they were still like everyone else. They both needed someone to lean on, to love and to hold close, both figuratively and literally. But taking into account her serial dating, and his general avoidance of that whole aspect of life, he had guessed long ago that this was the closest contact with another person either had experienced in many years. It wasn't easy, mixing what they did with falling in love. Both had used that excuse to live the way they had before. Now, though, both sides knew what they were getting into, how risky it could be and what it could mean in the future if either one had to suddenly disappear for an assignment. And as complicated as that sounded, it made things much more simpler for them.

Especially, Callen noted, at times like these. Working together and doing what they did meant that they didn't have to keep things from each other either when they left the workplace; not just because they already knew about it, but because they _could_ talk about it.

He pulled her closer with the hand on her back and placed the other one on the hand of hers that was gently stroking one of the five scars on his bare torso. It was a subconscious habit that he had discovered she had, and he wasn't entirely sure if he liked the attention being drawn to it. A thought that had left his mind for the past hour or so came back at full force at the reminder of the bullet wounds. She stopped when his hand covered hers and let out a near inaudible sigh.

"Feeling better?" Callen murmured, pressing his lips to the top of her head.

"Yeah, actually." Kensi replied in the same low tone, and though he couldn't see it, he could clearly hear the smile in the words.

"And about everything else?" He prompted carefully.

"What about it? I can't really do anything right now." She shrugged against him, the smile dying down with the dismissive words. It was an obvious sign to drop the subject, but he knew better that to let it be when it was bugging her, no matter how much she tried to keep it from showing. Even if he hadn't known better, he wouldn't have left it be. She wasn't the only one thinking about it constantly.

"Wanna head back to mine?" Callen asked her casually, almost teasingly if the choice of his words were anything to go by; something that she picked up on. He knew that she wouldn't be too excited with the proposal considering that they hadn't yet spent a night at the place, mostly due to her strict rules, or so he thought, about having at least some furniture before she even thought about _thinking_ about it.

"No way." She exclaimed, laughing lightly before tilting her head up to look at him when she realised that he wasn't kidding. Lifting herself up with an elbow on the pillow next to them, she gave him a sceptical look that he simply stared down, making her groan. "G, c'mon, you cannot be _serious_. I'm not running scared and letting some jerk chase me out of my own place for no good reason."

"I'd say what happened today is a good reason." He rebuked coolly without taking his eyes away from hers.

"Look, he tried to get me in a park, not here. If anything, this place is safer." Kensi argued calmly, propping her head up with a hand so that she could keep on holding his stare. "Anyways, we don't even know that he's after me, specifically. What if he's after the team?"

"The team that includes you?" Callen asked, a wry smile tugging as his lips to which she met with a raised eyebrow.

"And, shockingly, you." She countered in sarcastic surprise before dropping her head back to rest back on his shoulder. They were silent for a moment before she broke it with a small exasperated murmur. "You're doing it again."

"Doing what?" He asked in a tone that was genuinely curious, moving his hand from her back up to push back her hair when it fell across her eyes.

"The _one_ thing I told you not to do before we started this relationship." At his failure to reply, Kensi looked up to see his blank look before turning away onto her back to lay and stare up at the ceiling. "Treating me differently, and mixing work with personal."

"That's two things, actually." Callen corrected her in amusement, earning himself an unimpressed glare as she averted her eyes momentarily to his before training them back onto the ceiling. Sighing, he pushed himself up slightly to sit against the headboard of the bed and carried on seriously. "And it's not true. I'm just worried, like I would be if it had been anyone else on the team."

"Then stop worrying. It's not the first time someone's tried to get me." Kensi lied flippantly, sitting up and leaning over the edge of the bed to reach for the discarded shirt that she could just about remember throwing on the floor.

"Actually, it is." He replied, seeing right through her words. The hesitant pause in her actions of slipping on the item of clothing made him smirk at the fact that he had caught her in surprise. "What, you don't think I know that?"

Kensi decided not to reply to that. Instead, she focused her attention on buttoning up the shirt as quickly as she could before sliding to the side of the bed and getting up. The sheets made a hollow _whoosh_ing sound as she threw the half she had been using back onto the mattress with a bit more force than was needed. There was no denying or hiding it now; she _was_ bothered by the events of that day. But he wasn't sure whether she was more angry right then because of him pushing her, or because him making her remember it.

"Oh, and next time," She broke him out of his thoughts as he followed her around the room with his eyes, watching as she picked up the mess from the floor onto to dump it all on any other higher flat surface. She didn't stop nor look at him as she spoke. "Don't get Sam to do your dirty work for you. He sucks at it"

"What dirty work?" Callen questioned, finding her frustration slightly entertaining, something that he didn't try hard to hide.

"You know what I'm talking about." Kensi scoffed, throwing a pillow from the floor at him with a perfect aim that if he hadn't been so aware, it would have hit him square in the face.

"Really don't." He shrugged half-heartedly, twirling the item that he had just caught in his lap.

"Sam tailing me home?" She said, words dripping with cynicism as she twirled around to face him and crossing her arms loosely to match the distrust in her voice.

"I _never_ told him to do that, I swear." Callen insisted, dropping the pillow and holding up his hands in a sign of surrender. It was _technically_ the truth, but the smirk that he just couldn't manage to keep off his face was probably what gave her the wrong idea.

"You're lying." She said matter-of-factly.

"Would I do that?" He asked in a mix of disbelief and defiance.

"Yes." Kensi stated dryly, quickly moving out of the way when the pillow that she had thrown at him came in her direction, only for it to hit the wall and fall back onto the floor. She rolled her eyes at his actions, but smiled reluctantly nonetheless and he was glad to see her previous mood had began to disperse. That was until she started to make her way to the door.

"Where're you going?" He questioned her as she turned the handle and opened the door.

"I'm hungry." She simply told him before leaving the room without another look back and him alone in the room.

Considering that he wasn't one to stay in bed even when he had company, Callen slid out and pulled on a pair of jeans with the intention of having a post-midnight snack-slash-meal too. He contemplated whether it was worth another try to get her to talk more about what had happened that day. There was more to it than just getting shot at, particularly when someone else died because of it.

But he knew that there was no way to get to that point in the discussion without pissing her off first right then. Maybe not even then. The only thing he could think of in a way of helping out would be to do what she had intended on doing in the first place; take her mind off of it all. And that, he smiled to himself as he left the room and followed her to the kitchen, was something that he was good at.

...

It was the sound of a ringing cell phone that woke her up this time. Except, Kensi realised a moment later as she rolled over onto the empty space in the bed, it wasn't hers. She rubbed her eyes, thinking about answering it when the owner of the phone appeared in her doorway having heard the sound too. He was over by the side of the bed, picking up the cell and answering it in a few calm steps. She, however, wasn't too calm as the memories of the previous day flooded back.

"Callen." He greeted in his usual manner, taking a seat on the edge of the bed as she sat up. She waited silently as he ended the call after a few seconds. "Alright, we'll be there soon. Thanks."

"What is it?" She asked, not being able to pick anything up from his side of the call or his tone.

"Eric says that the forensics people have almost got a viable print. About another hour or so before it'll be good enough to run." Kensi nodded at his words, both shocked and impressed at how quickly the time had seemed to fly since they had left Ops the night before. But then again, as she glance at the phone in Callen's hand, she saw that it was just past 6am and the night had been filled with a few time-passing activities to get her mind off it all. It had obviously worked.

"Ok. So we should get up." She murmured distractedly, running a hand through her hair to push it back. Only when she saw his raised eyebrow mixed with a smirk did she realise what she had said. With a roll of her eyes, she corrected herself. "_I_ should get up."

Throwing off the covers, she curled her legs to the side so that she could squeeze off the bed in the space left between the headboard and where Callen sat. She had only gotten to the edge when he placed a hand on her bare thigh; stopping her in the process and making her look up at him in curiosity. There was a darker shade of seriousness in his eyes that dampened the light-hearted look on his face that was still there with the smaller smirk.

"How you feeling today?" He asked her gently.

"Good. Like every other day." She told him with a soft smile that kicked up on one side when she carried on. "_Almost_ like every other day."

"Yeah?" Callen made sure, knowing that she was playing things down in her usual manner.

"Yeah." Nodding, she placed a hand on the one currently resting on her leg to curl her fingers around it and squeezed lightly.

"Look, I know you don't like it right now, but we take care of each other on this team. You know that, right?" He began in a way that told her that she wasn't going to like where this was heading.

"Yeah." Kensi repeated nonetheless, her forehead creasing as her eyebrows drew together in confusion. Callen smiled in response, and she relaxed a bit at the sight of it.

"Good. So when I say- very nicely might I add - _please_ don't go out anywhere alone or unnecessarily until we catch this guy, you won't put up a fight, yeah?" He asked her, and she could easily guess that if she said no, she would just make things harder for herself. But that didn't mean that she said yes either; instead sighing deeply and wondering if there was a way to discuss it without getting into an argument. "I'd be saying and doing the same to anyone else if it were them who had gotten shot at yesterday. And so would you."

Kensi had to admit that he was right with the last statement, but she wasn't going to give him that satisfaction. Her silence, however, seemed to be enough for him as he leant in to kiss her softly. When he pulled back, the smile was back on his face, and she had to debate whether it was because he thought he had won her over with the kiss, or simply because of the kiss itself. Either way, she decided, it didn't matter because it hadn't changed her mind from what she would have said before his brief display of affection.

"Ok." She told him, matching his smile with a subtler version of someone who hadn't been up for the past 3 hours already. With the hand on his, she lifted it off her leg as she got up and rooted around her room to being her typical morning ritual. "But let's get going, then. The sooner we catch this bastard, the better. You worry me when you start being polite."

...


	9. Chapter Nine

**_A/N': Sorry for the belated update. I fell ill again this past week, but I've managed to get this done rather than to study, hehe. Procrastination at it's best =D Thank you all for the reviews for the past chapter, and the ones before. I don't think you guys understand how much each little one means to me._**

**_I hope you enjoy this chapter once again. Please R&R! Happy Holidays, eveyone!_**

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Mission HQ was absolutely deserted when they arrived an hour later. Walking through the front doors and down the corridors that would eventually lead them to the main open space that was their working office, Kensi felt herself become more alert at the environment.

"This place is creepy when it's empty." She whispered, eyeing the walls and space around her as they continued to make their way.

"You should see it in the dead of the night." Callen teased, keeping his voice low to match hers and earning himself an icy glare that only made him laugh.

"How could you stay in a place like this? I know it's hidden, but it's-"Kensi stopped herself, replacing the glare with a more neutral look as she simply shook her head.

"But it's...?" He prompted her nonetheless, glancing over to see a small tug at her lips.

"I _was_ going to say 'a huge open space', but look who I'm talking to." She admitted, waving a hand around to represent the currently isolated gym of theirs as the space that he knew she was comparing to the house that he had bought and owned, but never really lived in.

"It's less claustrophobic." Callen said with a nonchalant shrug.

"It's empty." She corrected dryly. "And you're not claustrophobic, G; you're lazy."

"I'm not lazy. I have a busy life." He tried to justify though Kensi merely scoffed at his attempt.

"So do I, but my place is still furnished." She pointed out as they turned the last corner in the seemingly never-ending maze to reach where their workstation was located. The first thing that she did was to take a quick look around. It was a reflex built in from her operative training, and she was glad of it when she spotted Nate and Hetty in the latter's office area in the otherwise empty place.

"Well, I don't need a furnished place. I have yours." Callen joked. Expecting a sarcastic reply to his words, he was surprised when instead, Kensi stayed quiet. Her steps had slowed down and when he glanced at her, there was only a subtle formation of a smile on her lips in response to what he had said. Following her eyes as they drifted back and forth from the two people that had caught her attention and ahead so not to seem like she was staring, he asked; "What?"

"They're talking about me." She informed him with an edge to her words, clearly having been able to read their lips accurately enough to know what it was about. He assumed it wasn't good.

"You're surprised?" Callen questioned anyway, reaching out to wrap a loose arm around her waist to steer her towards their bullpen when she began to drift away slightly. "It's _probably_ a private conversation, Kens."

"They shouldn't have it in public, then." She retorted and pulled away from him to dump her bag onto her desk. Using a bit too much effort than was needed, and in the sparse room, the sound it emitted echoed, claiming the attention of both Nate and Hetty. They broke off their conversation at that, and Kensi spied their psychologist start to leave the office to approach them. "Damn. I'll be right back."

"Where're you going?" He called after her from his seat, having watched the whole thing with a smirk and a hint of confusion.

"Away." She replied just before she disappeared into the alcove behind the desk opposite to theirs. He saw her escape agilely into the hallway that led to the armoury without another sound just as Nate reached where she had been standing not a minute earlier.

"Morning, Nate." Callen greeted him.

"Morning. Was that Kensi?" He asked, pointing towards the area where she had disappeared to.

"You know it was." The agent remarked casually with his smirk still in place. "And yes, she is avoiding you."

"Ok..." Nate replied slowly. There was a pause of silence before he carried on. "Sam and Deeks are upstairs with Eric."

"So, why did you want to speak to Kensi for?" Callen asked whilst getting up and making his way towards the stairs that would lead them to the ops room. He looked over at the other man when he passed him and saw him follow.

"I didn't say-" He began before stopping short at the look of incredulity that Callen threw him over his shoulder. In the time that he had worked with the team, Nate now knew better than to try and reason out how they had started to figure out what he was going to do or say. That _was_ supposed to be his job. "It's nothing,"

"She didn't run a mile in the other direction just because you wanted to talk to her about 'nothing'." Callen said lightly before waiting at the top of the stairs for him to catch up on the final two steps. There was a more serious demeanour to the agent now as he crossed his arms and dropped the teasing words. "Nate, if there's something wrong, or going on, that could affect her in the field, then I need to know."

"Did she say there was?" Nate deflected, taking a few steps towards the balcony of the upper landing and leaning against it. The question was almost rhetorical because he knew that he wasn't going to get an answer to it. At least not a worded one. "It's just the normal, general stuff. You know, after something like yesterday happens."

"The shooting 'something' or the getting ill 'something'?" Callen asked sceptically.

"Both." He replied with a slight hesitation, watching as the other man raised an eyebrow in unadulterated concern. Nate sighed. Somehow, he _always_ ended up boxed into a corner with no way of getting out except for saying what needed to be heard. "Hetty said that as long as Kensi and I have a little conversation, it should be fine. That is, if I think she's fine. And I think she'll be fine. She's good at what she does."

"Kensi get you that nervous, huh? I won't tell her if you tell me something..." Callen joked, reverting back to his normal good-natured ribbing as he picked up on the psychologist's babbling. When Nate shook his head and opened his mouth to argue, he rolled his eyes and began towards the ops room once again. "Alright, alright, I get it. Doctor/patient confidentiality."

Callen heard the sigh of relief that the psychologist let out when he passed him by to enter the room where the others were gathered. He was surprised when Nate didn't follow him, instead carrying on down the hallway towards the bench that sat there, but shrugged it off when Sam spoke to him.

"Perfect timing, G. Eric was just about to run the print through the database." He told him from where he currently stood in the centre of the room, looking as intimidating as always, even in the early hours of the morning.

"It might take a while, though. We don't even know if he'll be in it." The tech operator added, carrying on with the search that he was composing using almost every print collection that Callen could think of, and then some. They weren't cutting corners on this case.

"Worth a shot." Deeks muttered. Throwing him a quick glance, Callen smirked the yawning officer almost falling asleep in the chair that he occupied on the far side of the room. His attention, however, was still guided. "Where's Kensi?"

"She's-"He managed to begin before he got cut off by the woman in question.

"-here." She finished plainly, coming to stand next to him and leaning back against the table to take in what Eric was displaying on the monitor in front of them. "So it worked?"

"They said that it's not 100%, and wouldn't hold up in court but yeah." He repeated what he had been told by the forensic team who had sent the print to him that morning. "That's if we get any hits."

"Did they find anything else?" Kensi asked even though she was fairly certain what the answer to that would be.

"Nope ."

"It all lies on this print." Sam said roughly, pointing out the obvious fact that they were all thinking but didn't want to say. Because if this print led them to nowhere, the only other way they were going to find this guy was if he acted once again.

Nobody said anything else as the search carried on in front of them. They watched the rapid flash of numerous prints that were quickly discarded without a match with a growing eagerness for something to come up. It ran through several databases at a time for efficiency, and it was probably why the screen suddenly froze after only 3 minutes with a little _ping._

"What was that?" Deeks asked, practically jumping at the sharp sound. Another rectangular box appeared, telling them exactly what they had wanted to see. Match found.

"I thought you said 'it might take a while'?" Callen questioned Eric in a mix of amusement and shock.

"I did. Guess I was wrong." He answered with a sheepish smile, pushing up his glasses as he pulled up the details about their supposed shooter. In addition to the print, Eric found his details, driver's licence and a photo depicting him as a dark haired, light eyed, Caucasian man who looked no older than 35. "Tommy Jenkins. Just got out of prison, which explains why we got a hit so quick. He got parole from a 4 year sentence for possession and distribution of illegal arms."

"Surprise surprise." Sam remarked sarcastically.

"Only been out a couple of months." Deeks commented indifferently, reading off the screen what he deemed to be an important piece of information.

"Do you know him?" Callen turned his head to look at the junior agent to his left, who shook her head without another thought.

"No." Kensi frowned, not happy with the result. Of course, getting a hit was better than nothing, but she had at least hoped to know the reasoning behind why he had gone after her before they went to find him.

"What else do we have on him?" He asked Eric with a new found determination.

"Nothing really. No wife, no kids." The apologetic reply wasn't what any of them were hoping to hear. However, if they didn't have firsthand knowledge about Jenkins, then they needed to get it some other way, if it was possible.

"What's his current address?" Sam asked, not being able to spot it in the current details that they could see. It didn't take long for Eric to find it and throw it up.

"Apparently hasn't moved since before he went to prison." He said, reading the comments from the parole forms that he had found the information from.

"That's got to be a lie." Deeks scoffed, to which the other 4 people in the room all looked over at him with confusion, silently asking him to elaborate on his theory. "You wouldn't go back to the same place when you get parole. Never know which former _associate_ will get twitchy in fear of having been grassed out."

The looks of confusion simultaneously changed into ones of scepticism, only Eric hid it by pretending to be more interested with the computer tablet in his hands, Kensi rolled her eyes and the other two simply smirked. Deeks, in response, cleared his throat and swivelled his chair back around to face the huge monitor.

"What about his parole officer?" He asked, acting as nonchalance as he could to get the rest of them back onto the case at hand. Being the newbie, he learnt, never got old, no matter how long it had been.

"Michael Bishop. State level parole officer." Eric informed them, showing them the details for Bishop next to Jenkins'.

"He'll know for sure." Callen stated. He ran through the facts that they had just found out, coming to the only conclusion that he could think of to get this case moving once again. "Kensi, you and Deeks go check out Jenkins' place. We'll take Bishop's."

"Alright." She replied, trying not to let the surprise that she felt show in her words or anything else. The small nod that he offered her told her exactly that she wanted; that he was treating her like he would if it were any other one of them in her position. It was enough for her to feel more buzzed and optimistic suddenly as she left the room, expecting her partner to follow.

"You sure that's wise?" Deeks spoke up once she was effectively out of sight, though he still sat in his seat. At their team leader's questioning look, he carried on, albeit wryly. "I mean, what if we find him and she wants to, I dunno, repay the favour?"

"Thought you said he wouldn't be there." Callen joked as Deeks glared, unimpressed. "Kensi's not stupid. She'll keep her cool."

"And if _he_ wants to finish the job?" He asked, jerking his head towards the screen to show who he meant by 'he' exactly.

"Well, that's why you're there." Sam replied this time. Although his words were light and good-natured, there was the still the underlying stiffness in his posture that suggested that he wasn't as comfortable as Callen was in sending Kensi out in the field.

The words made him a bit nervous. He knew how close the team was before he got there, and how protective they were of each other. Losing a teammate only a little while before he had came in had strengthened that and Deeks was sure that if anything would happen to him, they would have his back too. In addition with the information he had found out the day before, he nodded and let out a heavy breath. There was no way he would make it to see another day if he failed at his duties.

"No pressure." He muttered, mostly to himself, before pushing himself out of the chair just as Kensi reappeared in the doorway, looking more anxious than angry at having to wait.

"You coming, Deeks?" She asked, almost sarcastically.

"Right behind you." He replied in his usual loud manner, making her shake her head exasperatedly and turn away once again to leave the room. An annoyed Kensi, not to his doing either, was certainly not the best way to start the day.

...

Kensi began making her way back towards the stairs. Her movements were cautious; the last time she had left the room, which was only a moment before, Nate had been waiting on the bench down the hallway for her. She had managed to get away by going back for her partner, and in that time, it had seemed like the operational psychologist had disappeared.

However, she knew that the key word there was _seemed._ Nate had the ugly habit of being able to sneak up on people; appear in places when they were sure they were alone. And as she carried on to the stairs that would lead her downstairs and finally outside, Kensi kept an eye out for the man. Unfortunately for her, keeping an eye out for him meant that he also knew when she spotted him, such as when she reached the corner of the upper landing and saw him coming towards her from the other direction.

Cursing under her breath, she swiftly turned on her heel, hoping to escape in the opposite direction. Unluckily, she wasn't quick enough.

"Kensi, wait up!" Nate called out and there was nothing else she could do but freeze. Closing her eyes, she let out a deep breath before opening them to see Deeks who had followed her out of the ops room. His boyish smile shone on his face, no doubt knowing exactly what she was running from. Sending him a cold glare, she turned back to Nate with the most innocent look that she could muster.

"I've got to-" She began, faltering when an unconvinced look passed Nate's face. There weren't enough excuses in the world for her to escape this talk anymore.

"I'll wait by the car." Deeks told her without sacrificing the smile, passing by her and Nate, to whom he stage-whispered. "Good luck."

"You can't avoid me." Nate told her once Deeks had left the two of them be. Kensi raised an eyebrow at his words.

"Avoid? I'm not avoiding you." She lied without any effort.

"Hetty suggested that we have a little chat before you head back out again." He said, ignoring her words and taking a few steps back to lean against the window ledge.

"I'm assuming you mean in the field, and it's only been a day. Less, actually. I think I'll be fine." She brushed off, matching his stance by crossing her arms also and leaning back against the balcony edge for some distance, from both him and the upcoming conversation.

"You remember that chat we had yesterday?" Kensi tilted her head to the side slightly at his question, pretending to think about it.

"Vaguely."

"Let's talk some more." Nate replied, once again ignoring her ways of ending or changing the subject. At his words, the neutral look on her face changed into one of annoyance. "I know you don't want to, but unless I say so, you are effectively benched."

"For?" She asked, standing up straight in outrage.

"Trauma. Too involved. Not feeling 100%. I can suggest any and it would stick right now." He shrugged, eyes shifting uncomfortable from hers to the side and back again at the intensity of her stare.

"You would _lie_, Nate? I never thought you had it in you." Kensi said wryly, relaxing slightly and closing the gap between them by half. Unfolding her arms, she ticked off the list on her fingers as she spoke. "I'm not traumatized, I'm not too involved, and I'm _definitely_ not under par."

"This man tried to kill you." He stated matter-of-factly.

"That, I do remember." She replied dryly, coming to stand against the wall next to where he was perched without breaking eye contact. As soon as she did, she knew that he would use it as an in. Kensi had experienced it a few too many times over the years.

"And he killed another man in the process." Nate carried on, to which she nodded.

"When I said I knew it wasn't my fault, I meant it." She told him before he could make the point himself. "I didn't aim the gun, I didn't pull the trigger; I didn't kill him."

"Are you telling me, or yourself?" He asked with a tone that she could only relate to a psychiatrist's. But then again, that was what Nate was, if the term was taken loosely. Either way, it didn't deter her from emphasising her views and feelings. Letting out a sigh, she took a seat next to him before speaking in a soft, controlled tone that let go of her reluctance to speak to him proper and instead do it her way.

"These things happen. I learnt that long ago. The only thing I can do about it now is to get justice for him. Ok, it wasn't my fault, and yeah, I might still feel guilty about it, but that's life." Kensi ended with a shrug and a small frown marring her features as she turned her eyes towards the wooden floor beneath her feet.

"Guilt's a hard emotion, and just because you're an operative it doesn't mean you can switch it off. Especially when confronted by the cause of that guilt." Nate stated with a heavy hint that she was sure not even the dimmest of them could even not pick up on. She knew what he was worried about; she had heard the horror stories about OSP agents having a mental breakdown just because the emotions became too hard to suppress. Or because they had suppressed them so much, there was nothing left to be expressed in the form of a conscience.

"Look, no-one wants this guy in custody, _alive _by the way, more than me. I'm not going to do anything stupid, alright? Don't worry. I have three... _idiots _watching my every move as it is." Kensi said with a scoff. Seeing the man next to her open his mouth to reply, she continued, beating him to it. "And don't say sarcasm is a mechanism for deflection. Because, for starters, that wasn't sarcasm."

"How did you-?" He began in confusion, to which she laughed.

"Nate, you might be able to get into our heads, but you forget, you do this _a lot_."

"It would make life easier if you kept out of trouble." Nate commented factually.

"Now, does that sound like us?" Kensi smirked and patted his leg before standing up. She had taken a couple of steps away when she turned back and asked him something that she needed to know if she wanted some kind of peace of mind for the rest of the day. The last thing that she needed was to be looking over her shoulder for him, too. "Am I free to go?"

"Yeah." He nodded after a short pause. She threw him a brief smile before disappearing down the stairs opposite to him quicker than he could ever fathom, hoping that he was right in letting her go. He could never be sure when it came to this team of undercover agents, at least never until it was too late.

...


	10. Chapter Ten

**_A/N: I apologize once again for the late update! I do try to stick to a weekly update, but this chapter just wouldn't go the way I wanted to. I found writing the beginning scene really hard, and then hit a brickwall with the ending._**

**_Anyways, thank you all for the reviews, favs and alert adds! Every single one of them gets me going with the writing. Hope you enjoy this, too. Please R&R! Happy Holidays._**

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"I found out two really interesting things yesterday." Deeks said to change the subject after hanging up on Eric about the guy they were currently going after. He rested his elbow on the car's door so that he could face her. There was a questioning look on her face as she took her eyes off the road for a second, prompting him to carry on. "Firstly, I did some research and there was nothing in the NCIS OSP training about getting out of handcuffs."

"You researched that?" Kensi asked with a smirk. She could feel his eyes burn into the side of her face at her humorous tone. "But no, you won't find that in there."

"Another one of the many _mysterious_ Blye skills?" His words were laced with a mix of teasing and intrigue that told her that this was something that he wasn't going to give up anytime soon.

"You could say that." She replied noncommittally.

"C'mon, you're really not going to tell me how you did it?" Deeks asked her, dropping the light heartedness and replacing it with disbelief instead.

"You really want to know?" The sigh she added made her words seem as earnest as they sounded, and if it weren't for the glint in her eyes that he spotted when she quickly looked over, he might, _might_, have believed her. "Magic."

"That's not funny." He said indignantly, a small pout forming on his lips and Kensi had to laugh at his childish behaviour.

"What's the second thing?" She questioned in curiosity and to get away from the current topic. It wasn't anything interesting, but she liked knowing something that would bug him until he found out, and if she had it her way, that wouldn't be for a while.

"I never thought of you as one to break the professional/personal barrier. But then again, I can see it." Deeks answered vaguely, resting his head back against his seat and staring out of the windshield in front of him. "How do you manage to get away with it?"

"What?" She asked in confusion. His words would have been more suited in the middle of a conversation, not at the start of a new one.

"Really? You're just going to sit there and deny it?" He scoffed dramatically, knowing that it would wind her up more and Kensi had to take control of all natural instincts to not reach over and punch him one.

"I can't _deny_ it if you won't tell me what you're talking about!" There was a sharp edge to her words that was accompanied by a quick glare in his direction when Deeks took his time in responding.

"You and Callen." He simply stated before pausing when he saw her stiffen slightly, from what he assumed was surprised. Once again, she prompted him to carry on with a quick questioning look, although this time it was accompanied with curiosity and Deeks could tell that she was trying to figure out whether he was for real or guessing. "Yeah, that's right, I know. I mean, it took me about 6 months to figure it out and I'm still offended that you didn't tell me. But you guys did do a good job at keeping it on the down-low."

"Clearly not good enough." Kensi murmured after a moment.

Annoyance flooded her, not from the fact that he knew because she knew that he would have found out one day, but the fact that it had happened then. She was sure that they had kept to the rules, both departmental and their own, to keep it out of the office, so to speak. The only thing that had changed was the events of the previous day, but even then, they hadn't done anything outside of professional behaviour. At least, nothing worse than anything else that she could recall slipping up on in the past 6 months where he had still not picked up on it. Which left her with the one conclusion that she was certain was accurate.

"You didn't figure it out" She said plainly, the irritation now gone and replaced with more curiosity. "Who told you?"

"Wait, what? Why would you-? I-" Deeks stumbled in outrage as he tried to defend himself. Unfortunately for him, she knew him better than she thought she ever could after 6 months and knew that there were only a few things that could leave Marty Deeks fumbling for words. And one of them was when she directly confronted him after figuring him out much more sooner than he ever expected.

His faltering was enough for her to work through their team to come up with the answer via the process of elimination. Sam and Callen wouldn't have told him merely because of the fact that they enjoyed the LAPD Officer's ignorance on the whole subject. Hetty wasn't one for idle gossip, and even if she was, Kensi was sure that she would never let on any of their personal information to anyone else. Although Nate could sometimes let things slip when they weren't under his confidentiality, she knew that he wouldn't have in the fear of the retribution. And she sure as hell hadn't told him, which only left her with one person.

"I'm going to kill him." She muttered, sighing in exasperation. The lack of argument that she got confirmed her deduction as being correct.

"You know," Deeks began a little while later when she turned them off the main road as they got closer to Jenkins' place. "Workplace relationships are hard. Take it from me, I know."

"Are you giving me relationship advice?" Kensi asked. Initially incredulous, the whole conversation was suddenly put into perspective for her and she physically shook her head as if to clear it and get back to reality. "Wait, no. I am _not_ talking to you about this."

"Why not?" He replied in question, slightly offended.

"Because it's _personal_." She said slowly before adding in a mocking tone, "And I don't think I want to know your advice."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Three words: 10 year rule." Kensi reminded him as she followed the GPS system that led her onto the road where their suspect's place was located.

"So?" Deeks asked even as he did his job and watched the neighbourhood as they drove down the street.

"You know, if you were having this conversation with Nate, he'd tell you that the reason behind your rule is because it offers you an excuse." She told him, deflecting slightly to change the topic once again.

"Is that what he told you about your one-date rule?" He retorted, smirking smugly when Kensi's expression changed to one of pure shock just as she pulled up a few doors down on the opposite side of the road from where they were heading to.

"How do you-?" She began, cutting herself off with a long, deep exhale to calm her emotions whilst switching off the engine and undoing her seat belt. "If you weren't my partner, I'd have shot you by now."

"Aw, thanks." Deeks joked, smirk still in place as he copied her actions and got out of the car too.

"That wasn't a compliment." Kensi remarked dryly as she eyed the apartment across the street. "New partners just take time to break in."

"Like shoes? You're comparing me to _shoes_?" He asked after a slight hesitation as he reached her side, eyes boring into the side of her face although she ignored it.

"If it fits..." Offering him a nonchalant shrug at his scoff, she began to walk over to Jenkins' place with a smile on her face, determined and happy that she got the last word in.

"Wait, is this why you're the favourite?" Deeks asked suddenly, calling after her as he finally followed. "Kensi? Kensi!"

...

Sam shut the front yard's gate behind him as he left the parole officer's house. It had been an enlightening meeting, lasting longer than he deemed necessary to gain the essential piece of information. His morning and mood could have done without Michael Bishop's working history and everything that he knew about Tommy Jenkins. But in the end, thanks to the interruption of Callen's buzzing cell phone, they had gotten what they had wanted in addition to getting out of there.

"Alright. Take a look around and see if there's anything useful lying around. Bishop gave us an address where he might be, so Sam and I are going to check it out." He heard his partner say into the phone as he neared him. There was short pause where he listened to whoever was on the other side, giving Sam enough time to join him on the sidewalk a few feet away from Bishop's house. "Ok, we'll see you back at Ops."

"That Kensi?" He asked once Callen had hung up.

"Yeah. He wasn't home." Callen replied nonchalantly, knowing that they both had suspected that that would have been the case.

"Guess Deeks was right." Sam said offhandedly.

"Hopefully, we'll have better luck here." Holding up the folded piece of paper that Bishop had given them with the possible address where Jenkins would be, he watched as the ex-SEAL didn't even make a comment on it or even move to reach for it. Brushing it off, he carried on while heading over to where his car was parked. "Eric's sending the GPS location."

"Hmm."

"What?" Callen finally asked, approaching the driver's side of the car.

"You _know_ what." Sam replied, slightly incensed that his words didn't even bring a hint of emotion to the other man's face. Rounding the car to the passenger's side, he turned to face his blank look. "Why did you let her go with Deeks when Jenkins is still out there? We don't even know if he's our guy for sure yet."

"Well, if we get going, we might be able to find out for sure if he is the guy we're looking for." He told him, purposefully choosing careful words to evasively work around the question. However, he should have known that it wouldn't work on his partner.

"That didn't answer the question." Sam stated, unimpressed, even as Callen threw him a sly smile.

"I know." Opening the car door, he got in, not bothering to wait for the response and never seeing the annoyed glare that had been aimed at where he had previously stood.

"You sent her because you knew that he wouldn't be there, right?" Teamed with the raised eyebrow that Sam sent his way when he climbed into the passenger's side, the question took on a more rhetorical, and even a statement, tone to it.

"Why would I do that for? It's a waste of useful resources." Callen retorted in faux-earnestly, looking over at the other agent with a suppressed smile as he clipped in his seatbelt before starting up the car.

"Oh, I don't know." Sam mocked sarcastically. "Maybe because it's Kensi, and keeping her happy and busy means keeping her out of the way."

"Question answered." He shrugged somewhat distractedly whilst following the orders from the GPS system in the car towards the new destination of where Jenkins supposedly spent most of his time.

"That wasn't an answer, G. That was a passive agreement. It wasn't even an agreement!" Sam scoffed, disbelief lining his words even though none of it affected the person it was meant for at all. If there was one thing that he would admit that his partner was better at than him, it was at being stubborn in the most subtle ways. Shaking his head to himself, he dropped the straightforward method and went for one that always seemed to work for them; joking. "You do it to keep yourself off the couch?"

"Jenkins might not be there, but there might be information at his place that might help us." Callen replied instead, going back to the first question before smirking and focusing on the last one. "And you know I don't mind couches."

"Doesn't mean I'm not right." Sam remarked after a short pause, turning his head to look out of the window as they worked their way through the city's smaller roads.

"Yeah, it does." The response came with an incredulous scoff that only intensified the smugness in the words that followed. "And I'm always right."

"You're always right?" He asked sceptically, looking over at the man in the driver's seat.

"Yeah. That's why I'm team leader, and you shouldn't question my leadership." Callen told him, rounding the conversation back to the original question that had been posed at him.

"You don't have _leadership_. You just say things, and if we agree, we do it." Sam retorted sardonically. "And I can name you at _least_ a dozen times where you've been wrong."

"Go on then."

"Well, right now for starters." He said matter-of-factly, to which Callen gave him an enquiring look as to what he meant. "She's going to see right through this; might already have. You'll probably be at Ops tonight, if I had to guess."

"She won't." Callen simply assured him, turning the corner when the talking GSP told him to.

"Because you're never wrong?" Sam mocked.

"Because I'm never wrong." He repeated, dropping the teasing for a more sincere tone.

"Right." The elongated word was followed by a brief silence before Sam added, dryly, "And pigs fly."

"If you say so."

The satirical reply ended their conversation as the two men instead fell into a quietness as they focused on the job at hand. Sam merely sat, watching the places go by as Callen drove them to the address that Bishop had given them, somewhat reluctantly, as a 'den' of sorts where Jenkins apparently liked to spend his time. When they had asked what he did there, they had received a reply in the form of a shrug, making them wonder what kind of parole officer Michael Bishop really was.

It took only another 10 minutes to reach the open apartment building. Pulling up in a side road, they exited and made their way over where they hoped to find their suspect. Keeping an eye out warily, they approached the front gates that led off the main road and into the small complex.

Sam pushed on it gently, surprised when it moved and opened with no additional apparatus. Exchanging a look of amusement with his partner, they passed through it and easily found their way towards where the apartment they were searching for would be.

"So, how're we going to play this?" Callen asked as he spied the numbers on the doors decrease in two's, indicating that they were heading in the right direction.

"How about as federal agents going after a killer trying to get our own?" Sam replied gruffly, eyes still raking the apartments they passed for the correct one.

"Yeah... I don't think he'll respond positively to that." He commented wryly before smirking when the other man threw him a quick unimpressed look. Throwing up his hands in surrender, he chuckled lightly. "Alright, we'll try it your way."

"Why aren't you taking this more seriously?" Sam questioned him over his shoulder, half intrigued and half irritated, while climbing up the stairs to get to the first floor where the rest of the numbers continued.

"Taking what more seriously? I'm serious." Callen answered. Although the smirk had disappeared, there was still a hint of light heartedness in his word which contradicted his words.

"This guy might have tried to _kill_ Kensi yesterday." The statement was to the point, and Callen let out a sigh, knowing what his partner was getting at.

They had worked with each other long enough to know that they both had different ways in handling things. Sam, even though he was a great operative, still played his emotions on the outside when he wasn't being someone else. He, however, had never really learnt to do such a thing, especially not while in the professional segment of his life. If he was really honest, he was still getting there in the personal side, too. Sam knew that, yet it had never stopped him from trying to get him to open up, no matter how many times he failed.

"I haven't forgotten, Sam." He told him, features schooling themselves into the hard mask that hid what the words portrayed; anger. It was gone before anyone could even see or comment on it; taking on a calmer lilt once again. "Besides, you're taking it serious enough for the both of us. If I added to it, I'd doubt he'd make it back to the boathouse."

"Hey, that's only because you're emotionally voided and I worry for you." Sam argued good-naturedly, though the truth in the words was clear to them both.

"It's called being level-headed." Callen informed him as he slowed down when the man in front of him stopped at the door just ahead of them. "It's what makes me a great leader."

"Hmm." He murmured in a sarcastic agreement before pointing towards the door of the apartment that they had been looking for. "You wanna do the honours, _leader_?"

Callen ignored the patronising tone and knocked on the door nonetheless. Receiving no response, he tried again whilst taking another quick look around the area in case there was anything to indicate the reason behind the lack of reply. Finding nothing, he nodded over at Sam, who was eyeing the area and seeing if there was anyone nearby who could either help them, or maybe even try to hinder them.

"Mr. Jenkins?" Callen called out as he knocked on the door once more, giving him one last chance before they resorted to other measures. "NCIS."

"No-one in?" Sam asked rhetorically as he stepped up next to him and tried the door before pulling out a small case from his jacket pocket. "Ready?"

"After you." He insisted, retrieving his gun before taking half a step back as the ex-SEAL picked the lock with ease and then took his own gun out.

The place was lit only by the natural light that shone in through the windows. Sam could practically see the dust particles swarming in the air as he took one side of the apartment and Callen went another. Silently making his way through the small, deserted rooms, he did his best to take in everything that seemed out of place. However, considering that the only thing that he had came across so far was a lonely pillow on the bed and the essential basic toiletries in the adjoining bathroom, it wasn't easy to deem anything as 'out of place'.

Pushing back the curtains in the bathtub-slash-shower, Sam paused when he heard a rustling that was independent to what he was doing. Retreating back towards the bedroom, he listened out for the sound again, knowing that there was a possibility that it might have been Callen.

The first thing that he saw when he reached the threshold of the two rooms was that the door to the tine wardrobe opposite him was now open. Second was the movement that he just managed to catch out of the corner of his eyes as a figure made its way towards the other doorway in the room.

"Hey, freeze! Federal agents!" He announced even as the figure disappeared out of the room before he could finish the sentence.

Chasing after him, Sam found it easy to follow him, despite the head start, in the small apartment. Of course, the fact that the other person knew the place better than him did give them an advantage, especially as they ran into another room that Sam hadn't been into yet. Before he could round the corner into what he guessed was the kitchenette area, however, there was a dull _thump_ sound that he could only associate with the familiar sound of someone hitting something.

It was for that reason that he wasn't entirely surprised when he came to a sliding stop in the next room to see who he could now identify as Tommy Jenkins half on the ground with his back braced against the kitchen cabinets, looking slightly dazed with a trickle of blood leaking out of his nose. Training his gun on him though he didn't look like he was going anywhere anytime soon, he turned to look at his partner, who was tucking away his own gun once again and lightly shaking his hand.

"_That's_ what you call level-headed?" Sam asked incredulously, taking out a pair of handcuffs and approaching Jenkins before roughly pulling him to his feet.

"He came right at me! Would you rather I shot him?" Callen defended himself. "Or let him run?"

"Feeling better?" He asked teasingly, ignoring his words. There was a small yelp of pain as Sam tightened the cuffs a bit too tightly around his wrists, but neither one of them paid much attention to that nor his exclamations of innocence and brutality.

"Yeah, actually." He said indifferently, making Sam laugh while pushing their suspect forwards. "Let's get him back to the boathouse."

...


	11. Chapter Eleven

**_A/N: I am so sorry about the almost 2 month delay in this update. I haven't been well lately so it's taken me a while to write this chapter. For this reason, I'm not going to promise that the next chapter will be up sooner, but I do hope to get it up sooner rather than later. I hope you guys are still sticking with me. _**

**_Enjoy._**

* * *

An half hour, a car trip with two armed agents doing their best not to shoot constantly moaning suspect in the back and a couple of icepacks later, the three of them were once again in another small spaced room although it was considerably bigger than the car and a lot more quieter.

Jenkins sat wordlessly on one side of the table, head tilted downwards and staring straight at his hands as they played with the edge of the melting icepack. On the other side of the table was Callen, sitting back in his chair and simply watching him, waiting for him to start speaking. He had a lot of patience when it came to this man. If he had to, he's sit there for the rest of time until he admitted what they needed to head.

Sam stood off to the side behind him. If Callen had to guess, he'd say that his partner was probably leaning against the wall, arms crossed, looking as intimidating as he could without even trying. However, if he was, it wasn't having an effect on the man opposite him.

They had only been at the boathouse for 15 minutes, with the past 10 being in that room together. Once they had originally arrived, Sam had hauled Jenkins into the interrogation room after reluctantly accepting the icepack that Callen had thrown at him for the injured man. His health wasn't their top priority, but police brutality was something that was taken seriously, even with agents like themselves who technically didn't exist. Though, he thought as he kept on watching their suspect from his seat, the ice didn't seem to do much for the enlarged, red nose.

The reminder made him subtly clench his fist to see if the lack of pain from before had just been an adrenaline response, happy to find that it was neither swollen nor hurting one bit. He had placed an icepack on it for a total of 2 minutes, which he assumed was the reason behind the slight reddening of the skin, until hearing a car approach and park outside with a greater speed than was necessary or entirely safe. Knowing that there was only one other person on his team who drove like that, Callen had made the educated decision to abandon the soothing treatment for the next room.

Although he had defended himself to Sam, there was no doubt in his mind that Kensi would have clocked on to his agenda from that morning. And if he had waited any longer, he was fairly sure that he wasn't going to enjoy the conversation that he could predict she would want about being in the interrogation room. So he wisely chose to avoid it beforehand and deal with it afterwards rather than the reverse.

Callen snapped back to reality at the smallest sound of scuffling behind him. It was a telltale sign that his partner was getting restless with the waiting. He might have been able to wait for as long as they needed to, but he knew that neither anyone else in that boathouse or most probably the LAPD could. And if he was honest, it wasn't really with the regulations either. Not that anyone really cared about them right then. When their suspect remained the same as before despite the sound, he knew that the game was up.

"Why did you do it, Tommy?" Sam asked levelly, breaking the hanging silence. At the man in question's lack of response, he carried on with a tinge of mocking contempt. "You were pretty talkative earlier. What happened?"

"If you're thinking that staying silent is going to make us doubt that it was you, you're sadly mistaken." Callen added when Jenkins made no sign of paying any attention to what they saying. He gave him a few more seconds before crossing his own arms and shrugging nonchalantly. "I can do this _all_ day."

"You do know that you killed a cop, right? LAPD are _dying_ to speak to you." Sam said dryly, hoping that a bit of familiarity along with a hint of a threat of what was to come would at least get them some kind of acknowledgement.

"Speak up now or you'll have to answer to them. And something tells me that they won't be so kind." Callen tried reasoning with him when he stayed silent, hoping that they would get lucky and the man on the other side would remember any of the many stories that he must have heard about cop killers. "But if you help us out, then we might be able to work something out and let you skip all that."

The silence stretched as Jenkins failed to respond in any means, bringing rise frustration in both of the men. There was nothing there that was truly keeping them from getting the answers that they wanted in their own way except for knowing that 'their own way' would follow with disciplinary charges. And perhaps a severe scolding by Hetty. Or worse; paperwork.

Callen exchanged a look of question with his partner, who simply stood up straighter and neared the table just that bit more. Sam eyed Jenkins with a glare that could probably burn holes through almost anything if it were actually possible to do so, waiting for him to react to human instinct to find the source of the heat. But, not to much of their surprise, he didn't. Instead, Sam nodded towards the folder that Callen had in front of him, indicating to change tactics.

Opening the manila cover slowly, he flipped through the first few papers before finding what he needed. There were 3 photos, enlarged to zoom into the area that it was focused on. He lined them up in the centre of the table, twirling them around so that they faced Jenkins before speaking.

"Ok, let's try something different." He said, tapping at each of the photos that showed the crime scene from the previous day. "See these? This is what you did."

The last word had left his mouth when Callen spotted Jenkins' hands stop fiddling with the icepack and freeze. His head tilted upwards just a fraction of an inch but his eyes scanned the pictures multiple times before shaking his head and going back to the item in his hands.

"Dunno where that is." He muttered impassively. Sam let out an unbelieving scoff at his words.

"A park. Just off Jefferson and 5th." Callen informed him, watching as their suspect swallowed. In the many years that he had been doing this job, if there was something that he had picked up, it was how to read certain people whilst in interrogation. And when they swallowed, it usually meant that he was onto something. Deciding to use it to his advantage, he went for a direct question. "How did you know our agent would be there?"

Silence was what answered once again. Inhaling deeply, Callen crossed his arms once again, doing everything he could do keep his emotions in check. Regardless of the fact that breaking the man's nose wasn't nearly enough for what he had tried to do, and that his failure to cooperate was only stirring the urge to reach over the table and break another bone or ten with his bare hands, he needed to keep the mask of the cool, calculated agent in charge that he was. Usually.

"Any little thing will keep you away from the LAPD right now, Jenkins." He told him in a nonchalance tone. Allowing him a few seconds to speak, or to even offer any kind of motion that would suggest he was interested in answering, Callen glanced over his shoulder at his partner to see what he thought. A small jerk of his head towards the door could only mean one thing, and he nodded. Gathering up the photos once again, he replaced them back into the folder before pushing back his chair and standing up. He saw the sudden movement of Jenkins' head snapping up at his actions, but didn't stop. "Ok. Have it your way."

"I followed her." Jenkins spoke up when Callen was halfway towards the door. Pausing, he suppressed the knowing smirk as he turned back to him.

"No, you didn't." Sam dismissed before he got the chance to, not having moved from his position nor stance. The suspect's attention was no fixed on the two of them for the first time since entering the room.

"I _tried_ to follow her home, but I lost her." He corrected himself with a guilty sigh of being caught out so easily, followed by a half-hearted shrug. "So I staked out a place nearby until I saw her again. _Then_ I followed her."

"And you got a shot in the park?" Callen asked, trying his best to keep the scepticism out of his voice.

"Yes." Jenkins answered in affirmative confidence. The two agents exchanged looks of exasperation arising from not getting anywhere mixed with a silent agreement. They needed a break.

...

"He's lying." Deeks said plainly from where he perched against the centre table to watch the happenings in the other room via the TV in front of him. The screen was now split in half with additional footage streaming live from their HQ where their operational psychologist was also watching.

"Really?" Kensi replied dryly. She sat on the table next to him, legs resting up on a chair and elbows supporting her weight as she leant them on her knees. Although her eyes had been trained intently on the man who had supposedly tried to shoot her the day before, she now let them avert briefly to the floor as she exhaled deeply.

"No-one could have seen her go to the park, then get into position while still remaining as inconspicuous as he had in that small timeframe." He carried on, ignoring her response for the agreement that Nate had supplied.

"I _am _right here." She scoffed, looking back at the TV with a glare that she had aimed at her partner quickly, though he seemed unfazed. Nate, on the other hand, did not.

"He's right, though. Look at him. He's jittery, anxious." He pointed out in his professional style, and Kensi had to admit that he was right. Jenkins was still fiddling with the edges of the icepack, even as the two men in the room with him left. "Nothing like the guy we saw on the traffic cameras or the surveillance video."

"Alright, so he's lying about what happened." Deeks repeated his original point just as the other two members of their team re-entered the room and approached them, catching the end of their brief conversation.

"Are we certain that it was even him?" Callen asked, directing the question towards the man who was currently standing slightly awkwardly, arms crossed and leaning back rigidly against the table, in the Ops centre.

"It was him." Nate confirmed without hesitation as his posture relaxed into more casual and common body language. "He didn't react to the photo you showed him of the park after the shooting. He ignored the actual events in it and instead focused on the more vague stuff, like the place."

"Which means?" Sam prompted.

"Guilt."

"He tried to kill Kensi, but he feels guilty for killing the cop?"Callen asked incredulously, to which Nate immediately shook his head.

"It wasn't him." He told them. Their confused looks made him carry on before any of them could open their mouth in reply. "No, I mean- It _was_ him. But it wasn't his idea."

"He had a helper?" Deeks concluded somewhat cautiously, looking over at the others as he spoke to see if any of them had any other ideas or agreed.

Something clicked in Kensi's head at his words. She wasn't sure where it came from, most probably another case, but somehow, it all fell into place. At least, it did for her.

"He _is _the helper." She exclaimed emphatically, claiming the attention of everyone else. The words leaving her mouth lead her to another realisation, one that brought up the frustration from earlier once again. If Jenkins was the helper, then their investigation wouldn't end with him. And neither would her constant paranoia. "He's working for someone."

"Explains why he wouldn't respond to the questions about why he did it. Because he most probably doesn't know." Nate added in hopes to help the team out in getting further with the suspect.

"Alright." Callen nodded before turning back to his partner next to him. "You up for round 2?"

"Can't wait." Sam replied sarcastically, already heading back towards the room that doubled as their interrogation room.

"Wait." Kensi stopped Callen from following, jumping down from the table and taking a couple of steps closer to both him and where the corridor led off to the room with Jenkins. "Maybe he'll answer to me. If he's feeling guilty, he might be more willing with me."

It had been something that he had been expecting from the moment that they had gotten their hands on Jenkins. Even though that had been a little while, he still hadn't come up with an appropriate reason as to why she shouldn't apart from the obvious. But he knew that telling her that she was far too involved would only earn him a cold glare and a demand for a better explanation.

Callen glanced over her shoulder at both Deeks and the TV screen. Sam had already entered the room with Jenkins, whereas Nate was staring straight ahead at him. If he had been in the same room as them, he would have found it pretty unnerving, but his vehement shake of the head only backed up his initial answer to Kensi's request.

"Plan B." He told her dismissively, deciding that trying to offer her an explanation would only waste time and most likely piss her off more so than she already was.

"Callen-" Kensi began in protest, but he began to back away and cut her off before they actually got into it.

"Stay here and watch. Just in case." He said evenly, letting a smile tug at his lips as he pointed to the table behind her. "Have a doughnut."

"I don't want a doughnut." She called after him when he turned to leave in a tone that was close to being petulant.

"Then don't." Callen shrugged off, giving her a smirk over his shoulder before reaching the door behind which was Sam and Jenkins. Kensi rolled her eyes at his actions, not bothering to give him the time or the satisfaction to know that his subtle attempts at trying to put her at ease did in fact work, and instead went back over to where she had sat before to watch the rest of the interrogation.

...

"I told you all I know. Aren't you charging me?" Jenkins exclaimed exasperatedly, and slightly restlessly, as soon as Callen had shut the door behind him. Sam had already clearly started the process without him, though to no avail.

"For someone who just got out, you're pretty eager to be arrested again." The former SEAL asked from the seat that he had now taken, picking up on the suspect's change of tone and actions. Whereas Jenkins had previously remained closed off and secluded from them, he was now leaning forwards onto the table, arms resting openly in front of him. Reading body language came easily for them when they were experts themselves in acting undercover. "Who are you working for?"

"C'mon, don't go all shy on us now." Callen jibed, placing the folder that had been in his hands since he had left the room previously back onto the table and standing at the end of it. At Jenkins' refusal to reply once again, he sighed and crossed his arms, giving up on giving him a chance and instead went straight into it. "We know you didn't do this alone."

"Haven't got the brains for it." Sam added dryly. That only earned them a set jaw and an unemotional stare.

"It's going to be a _long_ sentence. Probably with no parole." He said the words with underlying nonchalance, something that Callen found not too hard to put on. Sighing in irritation when Jenkins failed to respond after a little while, he uncrossed his arms and placed his hands onto the table, leaning in a bit towards the other man so that he could lower his voice. His partner used his stance as a way of intimidation; he used his lack of volume to threaten. "Tell us what we want to know and we can cut you a deal."

"Dammit." He eventually muttered in aggravation. Shaking his head, Jenkins' posture relaxed once again, and his mask slipped to portray the genuine fear they were sure he was feeling. "He said I wouldn't go back to prison."

"Who?" Sam asked immediately, almost barking the question.

"Dan."

"We're going to need a _little_ bit more than that." He scoffed as Callen retreated a couple of steps back. Jenkins held up his hands in surrender, eyes flittering from one to another in clear worry.

"That's all I know, I swear. He didn't give a last name." He told them, to which Sam sighed heavily.

"What did he look like?"

"Average." Both agents rolled their eyes at his reply, urging Jenkins to sit up straighter and reemphasise his words. "He was! Average height, average weight. Dark hair. Kinda old, though, but he looked good for his age."

"What else?" Callen pushed.

"That's it." Jenkins shrugged with a small frown, watching as the other two stared him down, obviously expecting more of an explanation than he had already offered. "Look, he was the one who directed me to the place opposite the park, alright? He told me exactly where to look and where not to so I wouldn't be seen."

"Why does this _Dan_ want my agent dead?" Called asked him slowly, pronouncing the name of the man supposedly in charge with a hint of sarcasm.

"I don't know! _Honest_. He- he never told me." He faltered as his voice trailed off slightly.

"So you just agreed to commit murder weeks after getting parole for no reason?" Sam asked rhetorically, his lack of belief in Jenkins' answer clear in everything he said and did.

"What's he got over you, Tommy?" Callen asked, knowing that it was the only other plausible reason as to why he did it. That, or he really did do it for no reason. Jenkins tilted his head downwards once again, although this time it was more out of shame than a reluctance to answer."You want to go back to prison for another 25 years?"

"He was in there with me, alright? It wasn't for long, but he- He liked to make our lives hell. I was only there for his last two weeks inside. But I pissed him off one day, and he said he'd make my life hell out here if I didn't do what he said." Jenkins admitted and looked back at them, pouring out the whole story without a chance for any of the others to jump in. "Then I came out and he found me. Told me to do this one last thing and he'd leave me alone."

"And you agreed." Callen concluded, to which he nodded.

"I'd waited for years to be free again! I didn't want to be looking over my shoulder all the time for something to go wrong because of him." He told them, shrugging and sinking back into his chair almost tiredly in the end. "I didn't have a choice."

"There's always a choice." Sam replied gruffly, standing up now that they had heard everything that they needed to get a conviction. "And you chose prison."

"Have fun looking over your shoulder in there." Callen retorted, picking up the case file once again as they headed out towards the door.

"Wait!" Jenkins stopped them once again, his voice urgent and desperate this time. "You said you'd cut me a deal!"

"We'll see what we can do." He said blankly. "No promises."

...

"Now, he's telling the truth." Nate was saying when they re-entered the main area of the boathouse. Kensi and Deeks were both standing, though whether it was out of anxiety or getting ready to leave, Callen wasn't sure.

"Yeah, we assumed so, too. Doesn't seem clever enough to pull something like this off." Sam replied, reiterating what he had said before to the suspect himself.

"Or lie about it in such detail." Called added, before addressing the other two who had already been in the room. "What did you guys find at his place?"

"Nothing much. Got the hat and scarf he used as disguise. The place was moreorless clean otherwise." Deeks told him apologetically.

"Nothing on his time in jail, or anything to do with a 'Dan'." Kensi supplied after her partner was done, knowing what it was that they really wanted to know. Although they had been expecting it, hearing it left a sinking feeling in both Sam and Callen at the fact that their only lead, and what they had hoped to be the end of the case, had led to many more questions that they had no answers to. At least, no certain answers.

"What are the chances that he actually exists, Doc?" Sam asked the psychologist, who was silently listening in on their conversation. At his question, all four turned to face the TV screen, waiting to see what his professional opinion would be. They might hate being on the receiving end of his psych evaluations and head shrinking, but he was good at what he did and they all knew it.

"The chance that there _is_ a Dan is pretty high. His recollection of his time in prison seemed real. Whether his name is Dan or not, that is debatable." Nate explained in his usual fashion that left the rest of them taking a few seconds to process what he had said. Once they had, the consensus was moreorless the same; confusion. Seeing this, he carried on to simplify. "If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say he was telling the truth. Based on the assumption that the rest of his story is true, too, that is."

The words left them all silent with food for thought. It was a case of 'if' and 'then'. If Jenkins was telling the truth about the rest of his story, then the story about Dan would be true too. At least, his existence might. Callen knew better than to assume that someone was involved simply because of their name being dropped into a conversation, especially during interrogation.

"Right. Deeks, get onto your men and tell them they can have Jenkins." He instructed their liaison officer. "Sam and I'll drop him off."

"What about the deal?" Deeks asked somewhat hesitantly. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to even approach the idea with the LAPD, nor if he wanted Jenkins to have the opportunity to serve less than he deserved.

"You really think anything we say is going to help?" Sam answered his question with a sardonic one of his own, raising is eyebrow at the other man.

They all knew the answer to that. Had it been the other way around, with Jenkins aiming for the officer and getting one of their agents instead, there was no way any of them would listen to any kind of plead for a deal. Though, Callen reckoned, had it been one off their team, he was pretty sure he wouldn't make it far enough to ask for a deal.

"Guess not." Deeks murmured before heading off to the small cordoned off space to his left to make the phone call.

"Did you guys find anything at his other place?" Kensi asked once he had disappeared.

"Other than him? Nothing." Sam told her with a single shouldered shrug before returning back to the other room where Jenkins waited to take him over to the precinct for the LAPD to deal with.

"Great. We're back to where we were yesterday." Kensi sighed tiredly as she watched Sam leave, avoiding eye contact with anyone else for as long as she could. There was no doubt that if she didn't get a hold of herself soon, someone was going to see just how much this was affecting her, regardless of her attempts to hide it.

"Let's head back to Ops. We'll go over everything we have again and see if we can find this 'Dan'." Callen suggested, snapping her out of her mind.

"Yeah." She agreed mindlessly, doing her best to act as normal as she could when she looked over at him with a small smile before averting her eyes to watch as Sam guided Jenkins out into the room that they were currently in. He bypassed them effortlessly, heading straight for the exit without even a struggle. She couldn't help but stare at the man who had tried and come so close to killing her, even for a few seconds.

"We're not back to where we were yesterday, Kens." Callen claimed her attention once again, and she was sure that it was timed perfectly to keep her from contemplating the man that had just left. She didn't know what it was that he thought she might do, but she had felt him near her almost instinctively on guard just in case. The thought made her smirk, though very wryly.

"Sure feels like it." She remarked.

"We'll follow Jenkins back over the past few weeks and see if we can find this guy, alright?" He explained to her before going around her to exit the boathouse too. Taking that as an invitation to follow, Kensi threw a look over her shoulder to see if Deeks was almost done, glad that he seemed to be nearing the end of his conversation.

"I know. I was just hoping that it would be an open and shut case." She admitted with a sarcastic scoff as they left their secret beachside shop. "That I could forget about it already."

"Yeah, me too." Callen told her, dropping his voice to a softer tone that she was only use to in personal conversations and settings. Although Sam had already led Jenkins to his car, he walked with Kensi over to hers, keeping in step with her as he pulled out his shades to put them on. But it didn't matter what he tried, because he knew that she would see right through his act of casualness to his more protective nature."Keep your eyes open. He might still be after you even if his shooter is with us."

"Yes, G, I'm aware of the _danger_ that I'm currently oh-so-hopelessly in." Kensi retorted in a sarcastic, saccharine tone, accompanied by a roll of the eyes. He hadn't expected anything less, but he saw right through her light-hearted act, too. "You don't have to remind me what to do."

"Just because you're aware doesn't mean you'll act like it." Callen smirked, earning himself a half-hearted glare and a small shove, making him laugh. Kensi merely shook her head as they reached the car. "Hey, I speak from experience!"

"How's the hand?" She rebuked as she turned to face him, both challenging his own actions when in danger and taking the conversation away from herself.

"Fine. It's not like I've never hit anyone before." He replied, holding up the hand in the space between them to show her as he flexed his fingers before making a fist.

"See, why do you get to hit him and I don't?" She asked, frowning lightly as she gazed over to the car on the other side of the tiny parking lot where Sam waited in the car with the man in question.

"Because I got there first." Callen teased, to which she returned her eyes back to him with another unimpressed glare. His smirk forced her to hide her own, pushing him away with a hand to his shoulder before turning around to open the door to her car. "Tell you what; you can hit the next one."

"Deal." Kensi readily agreed, climbing into the driver's seat as he began to head over to the other car. "I'll see you back at Ops."

"Wait for Deeks." He called back at her before she got to shut her door. There was no doubt that he could take her mind of the case and reassure her that things would be ok unlike anyone else, but he could also annoy her with the littlest things unlike anyone else, too. Winding down her window, she waited until he drove past to offer her wordless response of a single finger even as she did as he had said.

...


	12. Chapter Twelve

_**A/N: Once again, I am very sorry for the delayed update. I'm still not 100% better and I did jump ship to write a few Castle one-shots just to get my muse to focus back onto this, lol. Thank you all for the wonderful reviews. I am grateful and loved reading every single one of them. I hope you're all still with me for this chapter, and that you enjoy it too =D**_

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The need to go out and do something finally reached breaking point when she failed to find any mention of the name 'Dan' in any of the case files that she had been going through. Of course, it was only a small fraction of the things that they had gathered that could provide them with anything useful, but it was enough to drive her crazy. Sure, she was use to having days where they stayed inside, doing paperwork and chasing up leads or in the gym, but that was usually out of her free will. Being forced to stay indoors in the same place did something completely different to her levels of anxiety.

Finally giving up with trying to claim calm restraint, Kensi had thrown aside the last collection of papers on her desk and pushed back her chair to stand up. Only Deeks sat at his desk in their bullpen; Sam and Callen had yet to return from dropping off Tommy Jenkins at the LAPD precinct. Nate had wandered in an hour beforehand, soon after they had arrived, before disappearing off again when being handed one of the piles that they had sectioned off for him to read in hopes for a more psychological approach.

"Where are you going?" Deeks asked her at her sudden actions, leaning back in his chair as he watched her move from around her desk. He had been subtly keeping an eye on her, knowing that the silence of their workspace and lack of progress was making her more and more agitated by the minute. But, he also knew her well enough to know that if he mentioned it or confronted it, she would only deny it and go into a defensive mode. Especially with all that was going on currently, Kensi wouldn't be letting down her guard anytime soon.

"To see if Nate's got anything." She shrugged, pausing near his desk to rest her fingers lightly on the edge of it. "How's it going?"

"Trust me, if I had found something, I'd have told you." He assured her earnestly, trying unsuccessfully to hide his smirk as he carried on. "Your permanent frown is enough to get anyone working."

"I'm not frowning." Kensi scoffed, backing away towards her desk at his teasing words.

"You are. It's one of those deep-set ones that you can't tell you're doing until you look into a mirror." Deeks told her, and she had to use every bit of her will not to do as he had suggested and actually look into a mirror. Playing into his games was exactly what she tried to avoid on a daily basis. And usually, she had no problem matching his teasing tit-for-tat. "You'll end up with lines if you keep it up."

"I'm _not_ frowning!" She reiterated while narrowing her eyes at him challengingly. Unfortunately for her, he had drawn that look out of her too many times in their time as partners for it to deter him from his goal.

"You are now." He pointed out with his typical boyish grin and a chuckle. True to his words, Kensi could tell that she was in fact frowning, though it was more in a reaction to his words than what they had been doing. Immediately, she replaced it with an overly sweet smile.

"I am going to hurl something at you in a minute, Deeks." She warned him, pointing a finger at him and began making her way over to the threshold of their area so that she could carry on towards the stairs.

"First, it was shooting me, and now throwing something at me? I get more abuse out of my partner than I do from the suspects." Deeks muttered, making her pause and turn back around to face him with a raised eyebrow.

"That's because they don't have to put up with you day in, day out." Kensi retorted.

"Ouch, that's hurts." He exclaimed, placing a hand over his chest in faux pain.

"Not yet, it doesn't." She threatened good-naturedly before smirking at his unimpressed look.

"Weren't you going to see Nate?" He asked her pointedly after clearing his throat and putting on a more serious face. "Maybe he could shrink you while you're there. Get that attitude problem sorted out."

"If anyone needs a shrink, Deeks, it's you." Kensi remarked, rolling her eyes and began walking towards the staircase even as she carried on. "Then again, God only knows where they would start with you."

"My differences are what make me lovable!" He called out after her, the amusement clear in his voice which made her smile reluctantly to herself.

The frustration from only moments earlier had lifted the heavy feeling in her stomach, leaving only a lingering memory of it as she reached the upper level of the hacienda. Simply swapping some banter with her partner seemed to be enough to relax her and feel slightly more optimistic. She wasn't sure why, considering that they had made no progress whatsoever ever since leaving the boathouse over an hour earlier, but the familiarity of the joking helped remind her that things could be worse. Not everything had changed and at least she had the others helping her out with what had.

Making her way towards where Nate's office, which was rarely ever used by anyone else, was located, Kensi paused as she spied the Ops centre. Deciding to take a detour, she headed towards their hi-tech room, wondering if the search that Callen had demanded Eric to run was still going. Considering that no-one had heard a peep out of him since they had arrived, she assumed it to mean that there was no progress. However, curiosity ate at her to find out for herself.

Reaching the entrance of the room, she was surprised to see that it was deserted apart from one person. Although they mainly relied on Eric to help them out, they all knew that it was not possible for him to do everything that they demanded from him by himself and acknowledged, though regrettably rarely, the help of the other technical staff of their HQ.

But right then, Kensi was glad to see him by himself, especially as a distant memory of a discussion that she had had with Deeks only that morning came back to her. It had been pushed to the back of her mind almost as soon as they had ended it, more focused on finding Jenkins and closing the case so that she could go back to living her life without having to look over her shoulder. Considering that the latter hadn't happened, the events of before that had remained stored away, deemed unimportant. Until now, where another familiar stimulus brought back a more comforting feeling instead of the building dread that her case was going nowhere.

"Eric. Just the person I wanted to see." She announced as she entered the room, coming up behind the man.

"Why?" He asked warily, his hands freezing from where they had been flying over the keyboard as her jovial tone. Taking into account all that had happened, her good mood unnerved him.

"I hear you and Deeks had an interesting conversation yesterday." Kensi said indifferently, placing her hands on his shoulders to keep him from turning around and peering at one of the many screens on the desk ahead. It took a moment before he realised what it was that she was talking about.

"I wouldn't call it _interesting_." Eric replied, shrugging lightly under her hands as he watched her via the reflection in front of him. Her calm demeanour only worried him more. "Just a conversation."

"One that's going to cost me 100 bucks." She informed him, squeezing gently at his shoulders, making him tense whilst trying to hide the smile that came to his face at her words.

"You had a bet going?" His words were filled with hidden surprise, though he didn't know quite why. There wasn't much about the team that _should_ surprise him anymore.

"Yes."

"Of course you did. It's what you guys do." Eric murmured, wincing when Kensi pressed her thumbs to the back of his shoulders with an extra force. "Ow, that hurts."

"Sorry." She apologized dryly and let go, a smile gracing her features as he turned to face her with a sheepish look.

"I thought he knew. He is your partner, and a detective." He explained, holding his hands up in surrender. "I won't tell anyone if you won't."

"Trust me; you're not the one I'm worried about." Kensi told him vaguely, though they both knew who she was talking about. There was only one other person who knew about the conversation, after all.

Her eyes had been roaming around the screens once again as she spoke, watching as several pictures and information ran across it too fast to keep up with. That was until a certain one or two, most probably those that fitted in with the parameters that Eric had set up, were pushed to the side. Although they all overlapped each other, something caught her eyes, digging out another piece of information that had been buried at the back of her mind.

"What's that?" She asked the tech operator anyway, pointing towards the haphazard pile of windows open on top of each other on one of the screens.

"Oh. I'm just running a cross-reference between the name 'Dan' and Jenkins' first few weeks in prison. They're the matches." Eric explained, confirming what she already knew. Her forehead creased as she concentrated on the bits of the information of one particular person that she could just about make out. The look dissipated all light heartedness in the room, sending them both back into their professional mode. "Do you see something?"

"Maybe." Kensi said a bit distractedly before tapping the exact window that she had been looking at with a nail on the screen. "Pull it up for me."

Eric did as she asked immediately, sending the narrow window with the basic information over to the large screen that took up one side of the room. She had already moved over to it, not having to wait even a second before enlarging it enough so that it was readable by them both.

"Major Daniel Cooper. Who's he?" He asked, reading the man's name off the screen. It was accompanied by a picture depicted a middle age man, no older than 55, which was confirmed by his date of birth a few lines under that informed them of his address, reason for imprisonment and how he was honourably discharged from service after an injury.

"Someone I think I know." She replied a minute later, skimming over the words in front of her before disregarding it for the folder that Eric had sent with it that contained more in-depth information about the Major. Opening it up, she hurriedly flicked through the many different files for the one she sought after.

"What are you looking for?" Eric questioned a second before Kensi found what she had been searching for. Opening it, she didn't have to even scroll down the page to see what she had suspected. Highlighting with a single drag of a finger, she stepped back to take it in. "He was in the 23rd regiment. And?"

"This is the link to me." She said, inhaling deeply as it all began to fall into place. Crossing her arms, she nodded towards the screen in front of her as she let out a breath. The dread had set in once again, and it was worse than before. "My father was in the 23rd regiment."

...

"So Major Dan Cooper is the one who ordered Jenkins to kill you?" Sam questioned her. Although she had expected initial scepticism from them all, Kensi was relieved to hear nothing but curiosity and concern in his words.

"I think so." She replied. Her words might not have portrayed her strong belief in what she had found, but her confident tone did. At everyone else's silence, she carried on with a small shrug. "I dunno. He's the only one who stood out."

"You know him personally?" Callen finally asked, staring at the screen ahead on him as he spoke.

"No." Kensi said matter-of-factly, to which he turned towards where she stood behind the counter in the middle of the Ops centre, distanced from most of them.

"Did your father?" He asked again, trying to find another link between Cooper and her so to offer solid evidence in case anyone asked. They never really ever bothered to go through the proper channels in the right order, usually gathering their proof of a possible suspect after risking their lives to get them first. But this time, there was no room for mistakes or leeway for any doubt.

"I dunno. They weren't in the same squadron, so they might not have." She told them, knowing that it wasn't what any of them wanted to hear but it was the truth.

Her words brought a small silence over them. Letting her eyes roam cautiously over them, she tried to gauge their feelings about what she had discovered by their reactions. Sam stood to her right, leaning against the end of the counter that she stood behind with a fixed jaw and a look that she knew well enough. It was the one that he usually had on when he was ready to deal with something. Deeks perched ever-so-carefully on the edge of a computer desk, clearly contemplating the information that she had both shared and found, the latter of which was still on the huge screen.

Opposite him was Eric, prepared with his trusty handheld computing tablet to do anything they asked of him in eagerness to help. Although he was the only out of them all who didn't go into the field at all, his input and work was invaluable to them. And Nate lounged in one of the chairs behind where Eric stood, peering around the other man whilst considering and interpreting what the file on Cooper could mean.

"Ok. Eric, how many results did you get from the search in total?" Callen broke the quiet and her out of her actions with a no nonsense tone. Arms crossed and with a mask of pure determination, he stood in the middle of the room and them all, taking charge of the situation and the case.

"Too many." He replied with a small shake of the head, pulling up a small window with a long list of names that disappeared at the bottom when it carried on beyond what was visible.

"And after running them against all of the past cases, anyone we might know or linked to Kensi?"

"None." Eric answered, somewhat regrettably before adding unhelpfully "Apart from Major Cooper, obviously."

"It is a _possibility_." Nate muttered, speaking up for the first time since they had gathered in the room. His musings had been on par with what Kensi had assumed them to be, and she was relieved that he agreed with her. Although she wasn't one to usually need the backing of someone else when it came to her beliefs, right then, it felt good to know that she wasn't making something from nothing.

"Why now, though?" Sam asked the question that they had all come to after reading Cooper's details. "He's been out of prison for the past few years. What changed and made him go after Kensi now?"

"Maybe he was waiting for Jenkins to get out?" Deeks suggested half-heartedly, judging by his unenthusiastic expression.

"Didn't he say Cooper bullied people around in prison? He must know more than one person on the outside to do his dirty work for him." Kensi countered nonetheless.

"Something happened." Callen said as soon as she had finished speaking. He turned to face her once again, intrigue lining his words as he questioned her. "How do you know him? If you've never met him, then how did he stand out to you in the first place?"

"His name popped up a few times in my father's file." She told him, watching as a look of surprise passed over his features quicker than she should be able to notice. But she did.

"You've been digging?" Sam asked suddenly, eyebrows raised, as she looked over at him.

"Yeah."

"Recently?" Callen asked in response to her nonchalant answer, and Kensi was no longer sure she should be taking the fact so easily.

"I've never stopped." She admitted, eyes bouncing from him to Sam and then back again.

"Why didn't you mention that yesterday when we were going over who might be out to get you?" It was meant to be a question, but the edge to it turned it into a demand. His voice stayed steady as always, but Kensi got the feeling that he was mad, which only brought up her defences.

"I didn't think it was relevant." She told him, matching her words with his tone. If she didn't know any better, going by his words, she would have thought that she was being interrogated.

"I said _all_ cases. Anything that might have been even _remotely_ related to some kind of retribution."

"Considering that I haven't actually gotten anywhere with this one, I didn't really think about it. It's not even something that we worked on as a team." Kensi tried to reason coolly, all the while doing her best not to snap. His eyes pierced into hers when he spoke, but this time, she saw something more.

His neutral mask slipped for a moment longer than it had before, and she realised that what she had mistaken as anger was actually hurt and a bit of disappointment. It didn't take much for her to figure out that it was because she had never told him about her carrying on searching into her father's death. Somehow, it had never been something that she had felt was important enough to announce randomly. If he had asked, she would have told him. If she had made progress, then she would have as well. But he hadn't and she didn't.

"This isn't about the team, Kens; it's about you." Callen stated, his voice softening with a calming sigh as the emotions that he had portrayed just a second earlier vanished.

"We didn't know that for sure until a couple of hours ago." She reminded him. He didn't argue against her point, nor did he turn away, and neither did she. They were as stubborn as each other at the best of times, and even more so during disagreements.

"Look, it's done now, yeah? At least we have a possible lead now." Deeks' attempt at diffusing the situation worked perfectly when Callen merely nodded at her and returned to the position that he previously held. Kensi let out a steadying breath and glanced over at her partner with a forced smile. It seemed like she could always rely on him to take her side, no matter what. Unless, of course, it was an argument between them. "When was the last time you looked into your father's case?"

"A month ago or so." She replied hesitantly as she thought back. It hadn't seemed like it had been so long, but then again, with the jobs that they did, days tended to mesh together when they forwent sleep.

"What did you do?" Callen asked steadily and she was glad that they had moved on from the small argument from earlier, at least for now.

"The usual. Checked if there was any progress or anything new."

"Did you look into anything different than normal?" Sam questioned, brows furrowing as he spoke which only made Kensi more on guard.

"Yeah, a few things but nothing substantial." She explained warily, not liking the way he nodded only once in response. "What?"

"You must have come across something. You sure you can't remember _anything_ that might send Cooper into a sudden frenzy?" Callen prodded carefully, forcing her to look away from the former SEAL and instead to his partner.

"No! If I could, don't you reckon I would have mentioned it by now?" Kensi told them, exasperated by both their questions and the tag-teaming as they did so. She knew that they were only doing it to get to the bottom of it and had her best intentions at heart, but it wasn't something that she could hold onto when it felt like she was being treated like a suspect. Sighing, she let go of the feeling before it either built up and came out in the form of anger, or she became even more frustrated and let it all get to her. The latter was the last thing that she wanted the others to see.

"Well, if she doesn't know, then how did Cooper?" Nate mused out loud, and Kensi ignored his use of a pronoun instead of her name. She was more grateful in the fact that he had taken the spotlight off of her and back onto their new suspect.

"Eric, who's currently in charge of the case?" Sam aimed the question at their tech operator, not having to wait longer than a few seconds for him to complete the search.

"No-one, it's a cold case. It's part of NCIS jurisdiction, though." He informed them while transferring the answer up on the screen for them all to see as well.

"So anyone inside the agency could get into it and see anything that you might have discovered." Sam stated as he crossed his arms and stood up straighter with a step away from the table.

"Or hackers." Nate added in his usual matter-of-fact way, to which they all nodded acknowledging his words.

"Can you see-?" Kensi began, turning to look at Eric, who cut her off midway.

"-who else had accessed the file recently? On it." He finished off, already tapping away on his handheld computer. She couldn't help but smirk at his response and how well he seemed to know them. "Um, by looking at it, I'd say only us."

"But?" She prompted when she realised by his tentative tone that he wasn't quite finished.

"_But_ there's a hidden address, too. Maybe more than one." Eric said, apologetically. Somehow, it seemed like he was always the bearer of bad news in their team.

"Can you unhide it?" Deeks asked, his brow furrowing as he spoke, not sure whether what he was suggesting was in fact possible. There was a limit to his computer knowledge.

Eric nodded affirmative in reply and got going on the job on his tablet. They were able to watch his attempts on the screen, though most were only paying half a mind to it. The main thought on everyone's mind was what they were going to do to get to the bottom of this, if they were ever going to get there.

After several tries, all ending with a red stamp dictating that he was effectively blocked from being able to reveal the actual address due to unknown reasons, Eric let out an irritated sigh.

"Whoever did it, did it _good_." He muttered, words laced with annoyance and, surprisingly, admiration. A pointed look from a couple of them at his impressed tone made him blush lightly. "Sorry."

"So someone else got into the file, probably after you did, and saw something they didn't like and took it upon themselves to rectify it." Callen summarised all that they had learnt in the past half hour. "And that someone seems to be this guy at the moment."

"Only problem is, we don't know what. Cooper, though, clearly does." Kensi reminded them. Simply saying the words made her realise how it must seem to the others, and she had to admit, that if it had been anyone else, she would have her doubts about how it would be possible to not know something that someone else clearly does by reading the same thing. Sighing, she leant harder against the counter in front of her and felt it starting to dig into her hip bone. "I'm sorry, guys. I wish I knew what it was, exactly."

"We come across many pieces of information every day. No-one can remember it all. And what someone else finds important, you might not. It's all about the context." Nate attempted to comfort her obviously hidden distress that he could see by the tension in her body and words. Kensi let out a deep breath, smiling softly at his reassuring words.

"Besides, you ain't working hard enough if someone's not trying to kill you." Sam's statement only earned him sceptical looks from everyone in the room bar his partner. Rolling his eyes, he scoffed as he explained further. "Don't look at me like that. I got it from someone else."

"Who?" Deeks asked incredulously, beating the others. Sam merely shifted his eyes over to where Callen stood, trying to restrain a smile that eventually turned into a smirk aimed at no one in particular. "Figures."

"Eric, can you get Cooper's details? Phone records, bank details, emails." Callen asked instead. Although he was taking charge once again, there was a lighter tone to his voice than previously, something that Kensi realised helped calm both her and the atmosphere in the room. She hadn't noticed just how tense it had been until it was gone and she put it down to the fact that she had been in the middle of it.

"Done." He announced, breaking her out of her thoughts.

"Deeks, go through it and see what you can make of it." Callen assigned, waiting for him to agree before turning around to look at her. "You good to go through your father's file?"

"See if there's anything that stands out now? Yeah." She replied, brushing off his attentiveness with her blasé answer. He stared at her for a moment longer and she stared right back. Unlike the last time, she could see him trying to read her and see if she was being honest, whereas Kensi merely challenged him to disagree. Nodding minutely, he broke the eye contact first and looked back at the screen.

"Alright. Sam and I'll head to Cooper's place and see if we can find him, or anything useful." He said, knowing that he didn't need to even ask his partner. With new tasks to complete, and with a drive to get the case close growing by the minute, they headed out of the Ops centre to get started on their jobs.

...


End file.
